Danielle Fishel has a blunt message about the judging on Dancing with the Stars. The former Season 34 contestant and Boy Meets World alum said on her podcast that the show’s panel has a habit of going easier on male celebrities than on female celebrities. Fishel made the comments while breaking down a specific round of scores from Season 35, and her guest, former pro Kym Johnson, agreed with her on the spot. The remarks have since traveled across entertainment outlets because they point to a pattern that has followed the show for years.
The Score That Started the Conversation
The comments came during the October 28 edition of Fishel’s podcast, Ballroom Breakdown, which she hosts as part of The Danielle Fishel Shows. Fishel and Johnson were reviewing Horror Movie Night, the eighth episode of Dancing with the Stars Season 35, which aired on October 27. Guest judge Shirley Ballas, a longtime judge on the British series Strictly Come Dancing, handed out a string of low scores that night. Ballas gave actresses Julia Stiles and Tatyana Ali a pair of 4s. Bachelorette alum Tyler Cameron received a 5 for his Viennese waltz with pro partner Sharna Burgess.
Johnson told Fishel she was surprised by the gap. “I thought the girls were better than that,” Johnson said on the podcast. Fishel did not hold back her agreement. “That’s exactly how I feel, too,” she replied. “I also thought that a 5 was generous when she had given Tatyana and Julia a 4. I thought, ‘There’s no way that this dance was better than what we had seen. And so, if you were going to give the ladies 4s, I feel like this was worthy of a 4 as well”.
“Men Get a Pass That the Women Don’t Get”
Fishel then widened the point beyond one episode. She said the issue is not limited to Ballas or to one night of scoring. “I do believe that the judges, all of them, have a tendency to be harder on the women than they are on the male celebs,” Fishel said. “It could be wrong. But, in my opinion, I think sometimes the men get a pass that the women don’t get”.
“I do believe that the judges, all of them, have a tendency to be harder on the women than they are on the male celebs. It could be wrong. But, in my opinion, I think sometimes the men get a pass that the women don’t get.”
— Danielle Fishel on Ballroom Breakdown
The remark landed because Fishel has been on the receiving end of the judges’ scores. She competed on Season 34 with pro partner Pasha Pashkov and was eliminated on November 4, 2025, during the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame-themed episode. The pair finished in seventh place among the season’s eliminated couples and had earned a 34 out of 40 for their individual dance that night. Fishel knows what it feels like to stand in the ballroom and wait for the panel’s feedback.
The Audience Is Part of the Problem, Fishel Says
Fishel did not stop at the judges’ table. She said the studio audience and viewers at home also treat female judges differently from male judges. “The men get away with being able to give a constructive criticism here or there, whereas the women judges, Carrie Ann and the guest judges, they get booed,” Fishel said on the podcast.
She used a direct comparison to make her point. Bruno Tonioli and Carrie Ann Inaba sit on the same panel and often say similar things. “Bruno will absolutely sometimes say the same exact thing that Carrie Ann says. No one boos Bruno, but they all boo Carrie Ann,” Fishel said. In her view, the reaction from the room is not about the content of the critique. It is about who is delivering it.
“So in general, I think we see a little bit of unfairness with how women are treated in multiple different ways on the show.”
— Danielle Fishel
That word—unfairness—is the one that has followed the story. It is also a word the show has heard before.
Carrie Ann Inaba Has Already Addressed the Same Criticism
Fishel’s comments did not arrive in a vacuum. In November 2025, Dancing with the Stars judge Carrie Ann Inaba spoke to Variety about the long-running claim that she scores female contestants more harshly than male contestants. Inaba said the claim was “partly true”. She explained that as a woman on the panel, she can “get into more detail about what I’m seeing” with female dancers, and she suggested that women are “tougher than men in some ways”.
Inaba’s acknowledgment gave the conversation a documented starting point. Fishel’s podcast comments then added a former contestant’s perspective on top of a judge’s own admission. The two statements do not use identical language, but they point in the same direction: the show’s scoring and its audience reactions have a gender dimension that has been visible to people inside the ballroom.
Danielle Fishel’s Own Season 34 Run
Fishel joined Dancing with the Stars Season 34 in September 2025. The casting was announced on September 3, 2025, and she was paired with Pasha Pashkov. Her season included a contemporary routine to Aerosmith’s “Dream On” and a team dance that earned the season’s first perfect score, but she and Pashkov were still sent home on November 4, 2025.
The elimination itself drew viewer reaction. Some viewers believed Fishel had been judged unfairly, particularly by Inaba, and the conversation about scoring bias grew louder in the days after her exit. Fishel later said she was bothered by the way her final dance was edited for the broadcast, a separate issue from scoring but part of the same season’s friction around how female contestants are presented.
What the Scores Showed on Horror Movie Night
The Horror Movie Night episode that Fishel and Johnson discussed aired on October 27, 2026, as part of Season 35. Ballas was the guest judge, and her scores stood apart from the rest of the panel. Julia Stiles and pro partner Ezra Sosa performed an Argentine tango. Tatyana Ali and Jan Ravnik performed a paso doble. Ballas gave both women a 4. The other three judges gave Ali and Ravnik eights for the same dance. Tyler Cameron and Sharna Burgess received a 5 from Ballas while the other judges handed out sevens.
The numbers matter because they show the gap was not a matter of one judge being uniformly strict. Ballas was stricter on the women than she was on the man in the same episode. Fishel’s argument is that this is not an isolated scoring quirk. It is a pattern that repeats across seasons and across judges.
A Former Pro Backed Fishel on the Spot
Kym Johnson is not a casual voice on the subject. She is a two-time Mirrorball Trophy winner and a former Dancing with the Stars pro who later became a judge on the Australian version of the format. Johnson did not push back on Fishel’s claim. She said she was “surprised” that Ballas preferred Cameron’s dance to the performances from Stiles and Ali, and she stated plainly that she “thought the girls were better than that”.
The agreement between a former contestant and a former pro gives the podcast segment more weight than a single opinion. Johnson has judged dance in the same franchise family. Fishel has competed under the panel. Both watched the same episode and reached the same read: the scores did not match the performances.
The Broader Pattern the Show Has Carried
Dancing with the Stars has faced questions about gender and scoring for years. The debate is not new to Season 35, and it is not limited to one judge. Carrie Ann Inaba addressed it directly in 2025. Danielle Fishel is now addressing it in 2026 from the perspective of someone who lived through a season and then watched another one closely.
The show’s panel currently includes Inaba, Tonioli, and Derek Hough, with guest judges rotating through the season. The audience reaction Fishel described—booing female judges while letting male judges say similar things without the same response—is a separate layer from the scores themselves. It is also harder to measure, because it depends on the room and the broadcast edit. Fishel’s point is that both layers exist at the same time.
What Fishel Said About Her Own Experience
Fishel has spoken about the pressure female contestants face in other ways. In a November 2025 interview after her elimination, she said her final dance was built around “the impossible standards placed on women both from society and from ourselves”. She also said the story she and Pashkov were telling that week was about “how difficult it can be to be a woman in a society where we are somehow always too much and also never enough, no matter what choice you make”.
Those comments were about her own season and her own dance. The podcast comments are about the show’s judging system and its audience. Together, they form a consistent view: Fishel believes the ballroom holds women to a different standard than men, and she is willing to say so after leaving the competition.
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The Conversation the Scores Keep Starting
Horror Movie Night gave the discussion a concrete example. Ballas gave two women 4s and a man a 5. Fishel and Johnson both said the gap did not match what they saw. Inaba had already said the broader criticism is “partly true.” The result is a conversation that keeps returning to the same question, and it is not going away because the scores keep giving people a reason to ask it.
Dancing with the Stars Season 35 continues on ABC and Disney+. New episodes air on Tuesdays at 8:00 p.m. ET / 5:00 p.m. PT.
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