My Reality (22 page)

On that Friday morning, after finally convincing the producers that I would not be their next Bachelorette, I was facing down another typical day in my cubicle when my phone rang. It was a woman named Deena Katz, who was a producer for
Dancing with the Stars
(and who would later become my LA mom). She had gotten my number from someone in
Bachelor
production, and she wanted to know if I would be interested in coming to Los Angeles
that night
to be on the show as a last-minute replacement for TV personality Nancy O’Dell, who’d injured her knee during practice.

“Why would you want me?” I asked.

“We think you’d be great,” she said.

That was exciting to hear and all, but I wasn’t thrilled by the idea of doing TV again after what I had just been through, and they
wanted me in Los Angeles that night to rehearse over the weekend so I could dance, LIVE, on television on Monday night. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. This was supposed to be the moment when I got rewarded for all that I had been through by finally getting to spend time with Tye and enjoy our relationship in the open. And here I was, getting asked to leave again.

“I can’t do it,” I said.

Honestly, I hadn’t really seen the show before. I mean, I’d heard of it, and I knew the premise, but I was definitely not an avid watcher. So I didn’t really understand the scope of the show at the time, and I wasn’t really interested.

I felt like if I went, I would be choosing the show and the entertainment world over my relationship. And I didn’t want to do that because I
finally
had the guy I’d been in love with for two years. I didn’t want to do anything to jeopardize it. I was sure I was making the right decision. But Deena was equally determined to convince me that I should do the show.

“I’m going to give you thirty minutes to think about it, and I’m going to call you back,” she said.

As soon as we hung up, I took my lunch break and called Tye.

“You’re never going to believe this,” I said. “They called me to be on
Dancing with the Stars.
”

“And?” he said.

“Well, I told them no,” I said. “I would have to leave tonight, or tomorrow morning, and I’m just not prepared for that.”

He was silent for a moment, and then he totally surprised me.

“You should go do this,” he said. “Because the worst-case scenario is that you’re gone for a week. The best-case scenario is that you’re out there for two months, and I get to come out there with you.”

Really? Was it that easy? Geez, if Tye was on board, maybe this could be a fun thing for us to get to do.

Deena called me back in thirty minutes. “Have you thought about it?” she asked.

“I have,” I said. “I just have a few questions.”

“Sure,” she said.

“Can my parents come to the show?” I asked.

“Your parents better be at the show, absolutely.”

“They can come visit me?”

“Of course,” she said, sounding surprised.

“Can I have a cell phone?”

“Yes,” she said.

By the end of my questions, she was kind of laughing at me.

“What world did you just come from?” she wanted to know.

I filled her in on everything I had to give up during
The Bachelor.
For all I knew, maybe to be on TV, you had to hand in your cell phones and magazines before you could get in front of a camera. Mild misconception.

And then I told her that, honestly, I was terrified to do reality TV again because of my experience on
The Bachelor.
I described how, during that time, my family and friends were not allowed to talk to me or see me. I couldn’t have my cell phone. I was sequestered in a hotel room. I couldn’t even use my own name. As exciting as her offer was, I didn’t want to go through all of that again on
Dancing
.

“Don’t worry, it’s nothing like that,” she promised.

I believed her, but I was still nervous.

“Can you fly in tonight?” she asked.

“I need one more night,” I said. “You just called me half an hour ago!”

I had never watched
Dancing with the Stars
, so just like with
The
Bachelor
, I didn’t really know what I was getting into. I just knew that being swept out of my cubicle to go do the show was like being a princess in a fairy tale. I spent that last night with Tye and his family. Tye and I sat there on his computer at his house, looking up the
Dancing
cast, learning which celebrities were on the show for the first time and picking out dancers we hoped would be my partner.

The next morning, I was on a plane to Los Angeles, and that afternoon, I met my dance partner, Tony Dovolani, for the first time. In two days, on Monday night, we would be dancing live together in front of millions of viewers. Strangely, I wasn’t nervous about whether or not I would be able to learn the dance in time. I’m naturally able to hear music and count out the beat so that helped me to master it more quickly. Also, I got lucky, and our first dance was the waltz. Because I had a ballet background growing up, the waltz was probably the easiest dance for me to learn on the fly.

Knowing that we only had two days to master the routine, Tony also watered down the dance quite a bit. What did take me a while to get used to was dancing with a partner. Especially because some of the later dances, like the rumba, got a little, shall we say,
intimate
, and I’m very goofy when it comes to any kind of sexy stuff.

That first day, Tony and I practiced for about four hours, and then they brought in wardrobe to fit me for my costume. I was in awe when I saw the dress I was going to be wearing. It was a wild moment when I realized that I was actually going to be on
Dancing with the Stars.

Me!

I couldn’t even begin to grasp the scope of what I was doing.

On Sunday we again practiced for another four hours. By that point, Tony and I both felt like we were doing pretty well. I didn’t
want to overpractice, and I didn’t want to psyche myself out, so we decided to stop while we were ahead.

“All I want to do is have fun,” I told Tony. “You’re coming back here next season. I’m probably going back to my life in Dallas. This is the one little window of this life that I’m going to get, and so I don’t care if we go out and completely bomb. I don’t care if we forget a routine. I don’t care if my shoe falls off. I just want to remember this whole experience and have the best time possible.”

And that’s just what I did.

On Monday night, I went to the studio to get ready to tape the show, and when I got to hair and makeup, they sat me next to Holly Madison. I was freaking out because I was used to watching her on TV, and here we were, getting our hair and makeup done together. I’m sure I would have been even more starstruck if they’d had us with the rest of the cast, which included Denise Richards and Lil’ Kim. But the producers were keeping it hush-hush that Holly and I were the replacements for the two contestants who had dropped out at the last minute, so they kept us separate from the rest of the cast until it was time for us to dance. This did add a little bit of stress to the night because it also meant that Tony and I couldn’t go out and practice on the stage, like all of the other couples were able to do. He and I got one secret run-through on the stage, just so I could see it for the first time. But that was it.

And then we went live.

I’m not sure why I didn’t feel more nervous or unprepared than I did, but I don’t think it ever really sunk in how
BIG
this was. I had never done live TV before, and I didn’t think about the fact that it was the number one show in America at the time. I was very naïve about how significant the moment was.

If someone called me today and asked me to do the same thing
with so little time to prepare, I don’t know that I would do it. But I think that in that moment, my innocence actually worked to my advantage, because it kept me from overthinking the situation and getting stressed out. The only thing that I was worried about was how the public was going to react to me following “After the Final Rose.” I had no idea what people had been saying about me, or how they would feel about suddenly seeing me on
Dancing with the Stars.
I had purposely avoided hearing or reading about the public’s reaction to the finale, which had aired just a week earlier. For all I knew, everyone in America hated me.

After everything I had just been through, I really didn’t feel emotionally ready to handle people being nasty. As Tony and I stood in the wings, waiting for our cue, I confessed my fears to him.

“I’m terrified we’re going to go out there, and people are going to boo us,” I said. “Or that we’re going to be the first couple voted off because nobody likes me.”

Tony tried to reassure me, and then I heard our names announced as the next couple to dance, and it was time go out. Literally, the second they said my name as Tony and I walked out on stage, the audience went crazy. Viewers at home saw the show cut to a pretaped package that included footage of Tony and me practicing over the weekend. But in the studio, every single person was standing up, clapping and cheering for me. I heard women yelling my name. I could actually see people crying from the stage. I got these huge tears in my eyes. I couldn’t believe that all of that warmth and support were for me. It still makes me tear up when I think about it.

Next thing I knew, I heard our music starting, and off we went. I didn’t think twice about anything. My body took over and I went into my Dancing Bubble, which is a good kind of bubble! I didn’t
notice the cameras or feel anxious at all. I was just looking at Tony and having a great time.

As soon as we hit our ending position, and the last beat of music played, I started crying again.
Oh my gosh! We did it! We did it!
It was all so overwhelming.

The crowd
erupted
! And it was all for us. I couldn’t help my tears; I felt so proud of what we had just accomplished after only eight hours of practice.

I had gone from this awful pit in my life three months ago to not only being so happy personally, but to also being on the number one TV show and having everyone cheering for me right after Tony and I had done a really good job. After the dark place I had come from, it was such an indescribable feeling to see a reaction like that coming from people I’d been expecting to boo me.

After Tony and I were done with the show, I went back to my trailer, and I had all of these messages—the text messages alone numbered fifty-six—from my friends and other people back home:

“Oh my god, you’re on the show!”

“I just saw you on
Dancing
!”

I hadn’t been able to tell anyone except for Tye and my parents that I was doing the show—luckily, all of these reality TV experiences have made me very good at keeping secrets—and so the rest of the people in my life had no idea where I was and what I was doing. At least, not until they turned on their television sets that night and saw me waltzing across the stage with Tony. I’m sure it was just as crazy for them to see me there as it was for me to actually
be
there! The whole thing had happened so quickly that neither Tye nor my parents had been able to get time off from work to be there, but Tye told me later that he was at the gym that night, and when he saw me on the TV, he couldn’t help shouting encouragement to me.

I think for everyone else, who had watched me on
The Bachelor
, it was a relief for them to see that I was okay, and that even though I had been knocked down, I had gotten right back up and gone on with my life in an even bigger and better way than before. I think there were a lot of women out there who watched what I went through on “After the Final Rose” and felt like they had been through the exact same thing but never had the chance to tell off the guy who did it to them. And so they were inspired to see that it had all worked out for me in the end. And had it ever worked out for me!

The first episode of
Dancing with the Stars
aired on March 9, and my birthday was two days later. The year before had been probably my worst birthday
ever
, spent with my best friends, yes, but heartbroken and directionless at Medieval Times in Dallas. What a difference a year makes. For this birthday, I had dinner at a swanky restaurant with Deena Katz and my dance partner Tony, as well as Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak and ABC executive John Saade. I couldn’t believe how much had changed—and all for the better.

My life quickly developed a new routine. From Wednesday to Sunday, my days were jam-packed with practice, then an interview, then a fitting in wardrobe, then another quick interview, then another practice, then a trip to the stage to mark the dance for our live performance, and then maybe I’d go pick up some new shoes. Monday was show day, and Tuesday was elimination day, during which I always loved going into the studio and getting my hair and makeup done and putting on the costumes, which were amazing.

Even compared to what I was used to from cheerleading, the practice was grueling. For the first two weeks, I couldn’t move by the end of the day because I was using muscles that I’d never used before, and I was
so sore
! But it was a great life, and I had it easy. I
didn’t have another job when I did
Dancing with the Stars
, like so many people who were trying to record an album or film a sitcom while they were doing the show. I couldn’t understand how these people did it. Even just doing
Dancing,
I got up at seven o’clock in the morning, didn’t go to bed until ten at night, and felt like every moment in between was jam-packed.

But I loved every second of the show, and it was such a fun period for me in general. Tye had some downtime before opening his own insurance agency, and so he moved out to LA with me. The show put us up in a cute little apartment and gave us use of a car. When I was done with my obligations for the day, Tye would pick me up, and we’d try a new restaurant or coffee shop, go see a movie, or just play around. It was such a carefree time in my life that I felt like I was being rewarded for the fact that I hadn’t given up, even when I had gone through such a bad period right before that.