Nikki Glaser Says being Voted Out 1st during her DWTS Season was "Humiliating"

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Nikki Glaser Calls "Dancing with the Stars" Elimination "One of the Most Humiliating Moments of My Life"
by Brenton Blanchet
April 7, 2026


Nikki Glaser is reflecting on her "embarrassing" experience on "Dancing with the Stars" and what it taught her.

The comedian, 41, looked back at her time on the ABC competition series during a Monday, April 6 episode of Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard, during which she revealed that she isn't ruling out a return to the franchise if the opportunity presented itself.




Glaser appeared on season 27 in 2018 and was the first eliminated alongside dance partner Gleb Savchenko.

"I knew I couldn't dance when I signed up for it," Glaser said. "But I didn't really know. It's almost like I'd never danced, so I was like, 'Maybe I'm great and I'll find out.' I didn't even try to do anything before I showed up the first day."




While recounting her origins on the show, Glaser remembered her first time meeting Savchenko, 42, in person, calling him "one of the most beautiful people I've been around" and someone who is "as hot as his name is disgusting."

"I walked in and I saw his eyes light up because he didn't know who I was. You could see he was like, 'This looks like a dancer.' I have like a ballerina-type [look], at the time I was really, really thin. ...

For the cameras, we just had to do a little thing, smallest thing and I saw the hope drain from his face instantly. He knew before I knew that I couldn't dance. He was like, 'We're not gonna make it far.' We tried."





Glaser then said "one of the most humiliating moments of my life is getting voted off that show first" because she "did care," despite her lack of experience. "They kind of warp your mind in there because you don't do anything except dance. Your whole life clears out."

The comedian added that when she got voted off, she was "crying" to her friends about missing dancing. "They're like, 'What the hall? You've never danced in your life,'" she said. "It's all you do for a month for like five hours a day. You kind of get the hang of it. If I work hard at something I can get good. So I was just about to get past the place of, 'I can kind of get a grasp on this.'"




She added, "It wasn't about just getting voted off because you're a bad dancer, which was a part of it. It's about ABC is developing talent and they're like, 'Do we want to work with you? Does our audience like you?' And they didn't.

It was kind of like a rejection from America because America votes, ABC as a corporation and the dancing community."




After claiming that the show "forgot" to invite her to the finale and that a friend took her as a plus-one, Glaser later added of her experience on the show:

"It was really helpful to me because I realized that was the most embarrassing thing that could happen. On the show, after my first dance, they kind of tell you, the show is about believing in yourself. After you finish the dance, if you don't fall, be like, 'I did it, I'm a dancer.' Say something like that. They're kind of telling you, 'Be really family friendly, be positive.'

So they're like, 'How do you feel?' You know, Tom Bergeron. I'm like, 'I'm a dancer!' And I said it so sarcastically... Len Goodman, the mean judge, was like, 'No, you are not. You looked like a struggling baby horse.' Like, so mean."




Ultimately, Glaser said she "lived" and it "doesn't matter" as she now has as "funny story" to tell about her experience.

She also isn't ruling out a return to the ballroom, but under certain circumstances. "I would love to get back in there. If they did a Dancing with the Stars losers season, all people who got voted out first or second, I would definitely do it again. It was so fun. I was crying every day, broke my body, still have injuries from it, but it was so fun to care about something so trivial and to try something new."

https://people.com/nikki-glaser-danc...ating-11944255