Kate Gosselin on DWTS Finale: I’m So Controversial

The other night, as the tenth season of ABC’s Dancing With the Stars came to an end, Kate Gosselin returned for one final dance – and some free advertising for her upcoming shows. Footage aired before the dance number, from rehearsals, shows Kate trying to convince the audience that she’s more relaxed and no longer takes herself so seriously, while also claiming she’s “so controversial,” as the video below will show.

Kate reportedly got paid about $500,000 for her appearance on DWTS, which probably also included a re-do on the final show. For this kind of money, it was probably worth it to have an entire country (almost) mock her dancing skills and draw parallels between Kate walking and Kate’s idea of dance. However, the message the other night was that Kate continues to remain highly controversial and this is something she’s learned to live with. Her final say in the matter is precisely this appearance, in which she tries to prove she’s more than meets the eye.

“I wanted to make it more difficult because that’s really who I am,” Kate says at one point, only to be shown seconds later saying she’s “afraid to do that part.” “I would guess that 90 percent of my audience doesn’t like me. I’m so controversial. I could stand there in the middle of the floor and people would [still] judge me. It doesn’t matter if I did a Nicole [Scherzinger] or Evan [Lysacek] performance. I would still get picked apart to pieces – so I might as well have fun with it. I would really like America to see the real me. Just doing my best, laughing at myself,” she adds.

All is well until Kate actually steps on the dance floor, at around the 3-minute mark in the film. From rehearsals, one may be prompted to believe that her skills have improved since she left the show or that, because she decided to take the challenge more light-heartedly, that would impact her performance. If one did believe that, one was wrong: as the New York Mag puts it, Kate was just as awkward (if not actually even more) than she ever was while on the show. The only improvement is that she can actually smile through the entire performance, which has been named a joy and a nightmare to behold.

“And then there’s the dance, a revamp of the crazy ‘Paparazzi’ performance, plus an additional jig to ‘I Will Survive,’ in which she rips off her skirt, shimmies around the stage, and then gets onto a cranelike device that hoists her up in the air. While Kate’s dancing is just as awkward as always, she does attempt to smile, which makes for a marked improvement from her earlier super-serious frown-y performances (even if this time the grin did veer more toward grimace territory). But once she’s up in the air, things start to get really weird. There’s a long close-up of Kate in a Jesus-like position, in which she sort of mouths the words from the song and looks like she’s about to pass out. Her sweaty face is in ours, we see her mix of fear and elation,” NY Mag writes.

Below is the video of the entire performance – see it for yourself and judge. And, as usual, enjoy.