14 DAY TRIAL // American Idol castoff Pia Toscano showed off her impressive vocal range on Dancing With the Stars last night, with an amazing performance of “I’ll Stand by You.” Rumored boyfriend Mark Ballas and Karina Smirnoff danced to the ballad.
As we also informed you a few days ago, ABC was quick to capitalize on the massive wave of interest generated by Pia’s shock elimination from American Idol, booking her for a live performance on the eliminations show.
To make matters even more interesting – and boost ratings, as well – producers had professional dancer Ballas, with whom Pia has been romantically linked in the press, dance to her song.
Pia sang “I’ll Stand by You,” while Mark and Karina put on a passionate dance routine, much to the delight of the audience, which gave the three of them a standing ovation at the end.
Also then, Tom Bergeron told Pia he’d been instructed to ask her whether she was truly dating Mark or not, but added that he couldn’t do that to her, as if saying that he would really not get into personal questions with her.
He was obviously lying, even though Pia probably didn’t realize it at first.
“Is he a good kisser?” he asked with a slick smile, while Pia was visibly pondering what to answer to that.
“He’s a wonderful person,” she said, keeping up appearances: she didn’t say nothing when asked a direct question and, at the same time, revealed nothing.
As the cameras panned on Mark, viewers at home could see him smile and blow a kiss to Pia, as the video below will also confirm.
Also in the audience was the winner of season 6 of American Idol, Jordin Sparks, who was clearly impressed by Toscano’s performance, even mouthing “wow” as she got up with the rest of the people for the standing ovation at the end.
Check out Pia Toscano performing “I’ll Stand by You” on DWTS. Dancing pros Mark and Karina also take to the stage for an impressive number.