Derek Hough Says He Didn’t Intend Mambo to Look so Sexual

Derek Hough and his Dancing With The Stars partner Joanna Krupa managed the nearly impossible recently when their "dirty dancing" left Tom Bergeron beside himself. The Mambo that Hough and Krupa performed on the show featured what has been termed a "head in the crotch" move that was repeated several times during the dance. Hough, however, claims that he didn’t quite mean for the dance to look the way it did. Asked about the dance, Hough said, "Everybody’s like, ‘What the heck is that? It’s so sexual.’ Well, I didn’t mean for it to look that way! There’s a move in the mambo where she hinges back and you go down, flip your leg over and bring her back up. But as I was looking around, I was like, ‘Oh, we can’t just do our routine. We’ve got to do something different, something that kind of eggs the audience on a little bit."

That egging on of the audience resulted in Hough holding Krupa down during the move that Hough described. When Krupa tried to get up, Hough pushed her down again, resulting in the risqué dance that is the talk of television. Said Hough of his partner during the dance, "She did an amazing job."

Hough expounded on his partnering with Krupa on DWTS, where models don’t typically fare so well. Said Hough, "When I first started dancing with Joanna, I knew we had an uphill battle. She came in with, you know, not the best reputation. Getting to know her, she’s a really amazing person. I think models in general have a certain insecurity about themselves because they’re known for being beautiful, so they have to prove to everybody they have personality and they are intelligent. One thing I love about Joanna too is that she’s very thankful to be on the show."