Chaz Bono's DWTS Was Kind Of Insane, But That's Not Gonna Get Him Down

By all means, Chaz Bono has been the most controversial contestant on Dancing With The Stars perhaps ever: first, fans of the show reacted with disgust to his casting, and later, the show had to beef up security to protect Chaz from crazies. But Chaz wasn’t phased by the backlash, and hr danced his ass off until tragically getting the boot last night. Okay, so it wasn’t actually tragic: Chaz gave a seriously uplifting and inspiring speech on his way out that went something like this:

“I came on this show because I wanted to show America a different kind of man. If there was somebody like me on TV when I was growing up, my whole life would have been different and so I dedicate everything I did to all the people out there like me, especially the kids and teens who are struggling. You know, you’re gonna have a wonderful, great life and be successful and happy.”

His mother, however, was not so graceful about it; Cher tweeted “your mom ‘could cut a bitch'” last night.

Still, Chaz made it more than halfway through the competition, and considering how the rest of the contestants left can dance pretty well, I’d say he just might have won over America. The judges? Not so much. In his interview with Good Morning America today, he spoke about how he felt that on the show, women are applauded for losing weight on the show while men are penalized for it.

“I got a lot of references from him about things that would indicate that I am overweight: I was called a basketball, a penguin, an Ewok, and I just didn’t appreciate it. If you want to give me constructive advice so that I can try to improve the next time I’m there, that would be great, but I really don’t know how to be less penguin-ish so I kind of took offense to that.”

As someone who now has to admit to watching the show for years now, I have to say that the sexism is pretty damn clear. That said, he kind of did dance like a penguin.