Dancing with the Stars fans are reacting to the Season 29 finale, which had Bachelorette star Kaitlyn Bristowe winning the Mirrorball trophy with partner Artem Chigvintsev.
On the live finale, Kaitlyn and Artem beat out fellow contenders Justina Machado and Sasha Farber, Nelly and Daniella Karagach, and front-runners Nev Schulman and Jenna Johnson for the glitzy DWTS trophy, but not all fans agreed with the win.
On social media, some longtime viewers were upset over Kaitlyn’s ballroom triumph one year after Bachelorette star Hannah Brown won the top prize with partner Alan Bersten. Some accused producers of rigging the celebrity ballroom competition to favor stars from ABC.
One critic even renamed the series Dancing with the Bachelorettes.
“I have watched DWTS since it started,” one viewer tweeted . “The past couple of years when they started bringing Bachelorettes on as Stars has ruined the entire show! Last season and this season a Bachelorette won. That just proved without a doubt, the show is rigged!!”
“Two Bachelorettes in a row ABC? At least try and be discreet,” another Twitter fan added.
Some felt stars from The Bachelor franchise shouldn’t be allowed to compete on Dancing with the Stars at all, while others suggested a separate series for the reality stars.
“Stop putting stars on from the same network airing the show! Two Bachelorettes in a row???” another tweeted .
“Hey just… make a separate #DWTS spinoff for Bachelorettes so that maybe people who deserve to win can win the regular show instead of a drastic and extensive plug for your network show,” another wrote on Twitter .
Kaitlyn and Hannah have more in common than just being former leading ladies on the network’s rose-filled reality franchise. In addition to their Bachelorette backstories, both women received harsh critiques from veteran judge Carrie Ann Inaba but still managed to score the Mirrorball trophy.
The two are not the first stars from the female-led dating series to be cast in the star-studded dance competition. In fact, one commenter noted that original Bachelorette Trista Rehn Sutter actually competed in the very first edition of the TV dance-off back in 2005. While Trista was the first contestant eliminated, the winner was an ABC star– General Hospital alum Kelly Monaco.
Since that time, others from the long-running TV dating franchise have gone on to vie for the Mirrorball, including Jake Pavelka, Sean Lowe, Chris Soules, Nick Viall, “Grocery Store” Joe Amabile, and Melissa Rycroft – who actually was the winner of DWTS: All-Stars in 2012.