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"Here&amp;#x27;s something you guys probably never expected to hear: Being backstage at Dancing With the Stars every week is not easy! (I know, I know). After all, the dancers and their partners can only talk about their scores and dances for so long. They get tired of it. They want us to come up with interesting things to talk about, which is easy the first few weeks, but for a 10-week show, it&amp;#x27;s hard (one reporter recently tried to pry info out of Derek Hough and his rumored romance with Nina Dobrev, but he politely declined). So, thanks to you guys, I came up with a fun solution: reader questions! And, of course, my backstage report wouldn&amp;#x27;t be complete without talking to Elizabeth Berkley about her amazing Saved by the Bell routine, so make sure you read all the way through! Q: What do you do during commercial breaks? Snooki: Take bathroom breaks, get water, tweet. I usually keep my phone in my bra until I dance, and then I lay it on the floor. Leah Remini: Tonight, Tony and I got sushi at craft services after we danced. Tony Dovolani: I call my wife and ask her what she thinks. She tells me the truth. Tonight she couldn&amp;amp;#8217;t understand the judges. She&amp;amp;#8217;s usually my worst critic, so when she says she doesn&amp;amp;#8217;t understand the judges, then I&amp;amp;#8217;m good. Val Chmerkovskiy: We stretch, we prep, we talk about our routine. Q: What do you eat before the show? Amber Riley: Whatever&amp;amp;#8217;s here backstage! [Laughs] No, I make sure that I drink a lot of water, or coconut water. For lunch, I have fish with a vegetable and try to stay away from carbs or anything oily that will slow me down. Derek Hough: I like to stay clean, but [there&amp;#x27;s] also that damn table with those Laffy Taffy&amp;amp;#8217;s and Twizzlers and Starbursts. [They] Give me a bit of a stomachache, but it&amp;amp;#8217;s hard because they are just there! Snooki: Chicken, lots of chicken. Elizabeth Berkley: A sweet potato. And I did have two starbursts. Val Chmerkovskiy: I&amp;amp;#8217;m here all day, so I&amp;amp;#8217;m busy till showtime. I grab disgusting snacks. Chocolate bars, five cans of Coke. It&amp;amp;#8217;s horrible. Q: What do you eat post-show? Cheryl Burke: I will splurge and drink a lot of alcohol! A bunch of us go and do our own little thing after the show. Jack Osbourne: It&amp;amp;#8217;s weird, because you think you&amp;amp;#8217;re going to be on such a high when you&amp;amp;#8217;re done with the show, but you leave and think it&amp;amp;#8217;s 11 o&amp;amp;#8217;clock at night, but it&amp;amp;#8217;s only 8 o&amp;amp;#8217;clock when you get done! You&amp;amp;#8217;re like, &amp;amp;#8216;Oh!&amp;amp;#8217; Last week I went to Son of a Gun [restaurant] for my anniversary. Then we&amp;amp;#8217;ll meet up with everyone. Corbin Bleu: I need a burger and fries! Q: What do you do when the rehearsal packages are airing? Amber Riley: I watch it cause usually it makes me laugh! Derek Hough: I personally like it, but I try to get in the zone. I&amp;amp;#8217;m like, &amp;amp;#8216;Amber! Amber! Focus!&amp;amp;#8217; Snooki: I&amp;amp;#8217;m watching it, but Sasha gets mad that I am because he wants me to concentrate on the dance. But there&amp;amp;#8217;s so much footage that they film of us that I want to see what they use! Leah Remini: We&amp;amp;#8217;re standing there...they are uncomfortable, so I&amp;amp;#8217;m not going to watch them again, I can tell you that. Elizabeth Berkley: Sometimes I watch. I didn&amp;amp;#8217;t watch it tonight because I wanted to get into my character. I&amp;amp;#8217;m kidding. Q: On a scale of 1 to 10, what are your nerves like before the show? Snooki: I&amp;amp;#8217;d say usually a 10 in the beginning, but tonight a 5. I don&amp;amp;#8217;t get nervous, I get more excited to do it. Mark Ballas: Before the show I&amp;amp;#8217;m not nervous. But when they announce your name as you&amp;amp;#8217;re about to dance, that&amp;amp;#8217;s when I get nervous in the pit of my stomach. For those five seconds, I&amp;amp;#8217;m probably like 8&amp;#x27;s and 10&amp;#x27;s. We work for hours to do this, and you have one shot to get it right. Q: Who decides what order you dance in the show? Derek Hough: We have no idea. We find out on Sundays. We do camera blocking and do a run-through with all the cameras, and that&amp;amp;#8217;s when we find out. Q: What are your pre-show rituals? Jack Osbourne: Nothing that I can publicly say! It&amp;amp;#8217;s a lot of foul language, and a lot of sweating. Cheryl Burke: And then we&amp;amp;#8217;re like, whatever, good luck! Jack Osbourne: Yeah, then 10 minutes before, it&amp;amp;#8217;s like, &amp;amp;#8216;OK, whatever&amp;amp;#8217;s going to happen will happen. Just roll with it. Corbin Bleu: We always say a prayer. Karina Smirnoff: We ask God to keep us safe, and thank us for the opportunity. I am on cloud nine. Mark Ballas: I play guitar, I listen to music, I lie down, I stretch. Tony Dovolani: I have to see Leah every 30 minutes. It&amp;amp;#8217;s a connection thing. I need to be around her, I don&amp;amp;#8217;t know why. I&amp;amp;#8217;ve never had that before. I even go by her makeup chair even though she knows I have nothing to say. [Laughs] Q: If you weren&amp;amp;#8217;t dancing, what would you be doing? Cheryl Burke: I&amp;amp;#8217;d be a tennis player. I used to do it every summer, and my parents would ship me off to play tennis every summer. Sasha Farber: A lawyer. A criminal lawyer. Q: Who have you bonded with the most this season? Karina Smirnoff: Leah, Jack, Valerie. We all hang out. Monday night is when we all get together and don&amp;amp;#8217;t worry about next Monday. It&amp;amp;#8217;s when we let our hair down and all hang out and dance and eat. Bill Engvall: Valerie. I&amp;amp;#8217;ve gotten to know her, and just love her. And Jack Osbourne too. We&amp;amp;#8217;ve become really good friends. Christina Milian: I love Leah Remini. She&amp;amp;#8217;s like my homegirl. She&amp;amp;#8217;s so cool! I want to become really great friends with her. Leah Remini: Cheryl Burke. Tony Dovolani: The two of them are like twins separated at birth that have reunited on Dancing With the Stars. I&amp;amp;#8217;ve never seen two people, other than the two of us, that have hit it off like they have. Q: Do you stay in touch with your past dance partners? Mark Ballas: There are some I&amp;amp;#8217;m extremely close to, and others I don&amp;amp;#8217;t talk to as much because of scheduling and whatnot. I&amp;amp;#8217;d say I&amp;amp;#8217;m very close to Shawn Johnson, Katherine Jenkins, Chelsea Kane I talk to here and there. Kristi Yamaguchi I&amp;amp;#8217;ll reach out to to see how she&amp;amp;#8217;s doing. Kim Kardashian and I are very close, as I am with most of the family. Aly Raisman of course. Sabrina and I have done a few shows together. Aly even texts me every week to wish me good luck. Shawn texted me the other week to say &amp;amp;#8216;I miss you.&amp;amp;#8217; Last Night&amp;#x27;s Shocking Elimination: The Backstage Report To be honest, even though everyone backstage kept saying, &amp;quot;what a shock!&amp;quot; after Christina Milian and Mark Ballas got the boot (perhaps Len knew something when he gave out the first 10 of the season in hopes to keep them around), I for one wasn&amp;#x27;t too surprised. Until we get to the semifinals, this show rarely follows expected protocol. Christina seemed to have a harder time connecting with DWTS&amp;#x27; core audience, and even though she has a strong twitter following, it seemed that her fans weren&amp;#x27;t as passionate as other fan bases. Still, she was a phenomenal dancer (Len was right to give her a 10) and deserved to be around longer than she was. Derek Hough, who is good friends with Christina&amp;#x27;s partner, Mark Ballas, said backstage that it&amp;#x27;s more than just a TV show. &amp;quot;We give it our all and put our hearts out there. As a choreographer, it&amp;#x27;s our ideas [on display], so we care about it so much. It&amp;#x27;s really crazy to see them go. And to go home on such a great note, it was a bummer. Not to take anything away from Leah and Tony, but it was a shocker.&amp;amp;#8221; But the real watercooler moment today won&amp;#x27;t be about Christina&amp;#x27;s &amp;quot;shocking&amp;quot; ouster. Instead, it was Elizabeth Berkley&amp;#x27;s perfect Saved by the Bell number, reprising her role as Jessie Spano. &amp;amp;#8220;The fans tweeted us from the beginning [asking us] to dance to &amp;amp;#8216;I&amp;amp;#8217;m So Excited,&amp;amp;#8217; Berkley told me backstage. &amp;quot;We didn&amp;amp;#8217;t know if it was possible on the show because they&amp;amp;#8217;ve never opened it up for dialogue, but it was a lot of fun.&amp;quot; That&amp;#x27;s so true...when they first started talking, it was like your favorite team mascot all the sudden had a voice! That&amp;#x27;s never happened on DWTS before. It&amp;#x27;s been 20 years since Berkley played Jessie Spano, so how did she prep? &amp;amp;#8220;I watched the episode, and then I transcribed it, because I wanted to make sure I could put in jive pills instead of caffeine pills. It was fun to show Val that part of my life.&amp;amp;#8221; By the way, how cute is this? #I&amp;amp;#39;m so excited for @elizberkley&amp;amp;#39;s #DWTS dance tonight! She&amp;amp;#39;s going back. Throwing it way back people. Please vote: 1-800-868-3405&amp;amp;mdash; Tiffani Thiessen (@TAThiessen) October 14, 2013 Meanwhile, Val talked to me about a passion project of his own that he&amp;#x27;s about to launch this week. &amp;quot;It&amp;#x27;s a clothing line...high-end street wear couture. It&amp;#x27;s very fashion-forward,&amp;quot; he described. The line, called Valentin, is unisex and it something Val has been working on for the past year. To find out where you can buy his new line, visit the website here or updates on twitter. Special thanks to Glamour readers @DWTSGossip, @TeamTynes, @LaLaLexie22, @dd_alexandria, and @Lyrically_Annie for your questions! How awesome was Elizabeth&amp;#x27;s routine, and were you shocked by Christina&amp;#x27;s elimination? Photos: Jessica Radloff; Adam Taylor/ABC"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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