Sailor Brinkley-Cook is the 21-year-old daughter of supermodel Christie Brinkley. Brinkley was expected to perform on this current season of Dancing with the Stars, but unfortunately endured a bad fall during practice that left her unable to compete. As a result, she called in Brinkley-Cook to dance in her place. The young star performed well throughout the season, but was ultimately eliminated this past week, according to Women’s Day.
Brinkley-Cook cried on stage when she found out that her time on Dancing with the Stars had come to an end, as she wasn’t ready to stop performing. However, the young star ultimately learned a lot throughout her time on the show and even conquered her fear of stage fright. During an interview after her elimination, Brinkley-Cook talked about how hard it was for her to go out on stage that first night. It was definitely something she’d never done before and involved majorly stepping out of her comfort zone.
“I’ve had stage fright my entire life and it was something that definitely held me back. I would sign up for school plays, I would try to be in chorus class, and I would always back out last minute even though rehearsals were going great. I was just so scared of getting up there and baring myself to the world.”
Brinkley-Cook’s anxiety regarding how she was perceived by the public was brought about due to her mother’s fame as a successful supermodel. She knew first hand how harsh critics can be and that she was bound to be compared to her mom.
The first dance that Brinkley-Cook was scheduled to perform on the show was to the tune of “Uptown Girl” by Billy Joel, which just so happened to be her mother’s famous anthem. The young star had very limited time to prepare and almost had a full break down before she was scheduled to perform.
“The day before the show, I had a full panic attack and I was hyperventilating and I did not feel like I could do it. I was really freaking out,” she said.
Nevertheless, she was able to pull off a smooth performance alongside her dance pro partner, Val Chmerkovskiy. The duo continued to do well throughout the entire season and came in as the second highest scoring couple on Monday night’s episode, which wasn’t enough to keep them on the show.
As The Inquisitr previously reported, Brinkley recently commented on her daughter’s season on the show, saying it was “an absolute joy” to watch her dance.