Donny Osmond's family dinner table may have a unique centerpiece
this Thanksgiving holiday: a sparkly, much-perspired-over mirror ball
trophy.
Osmond was named champion of this season's edition of
"Dancing With the Stars" on Tuesday night, beating out singer Mya, who
took second place, and Kelly Osbourne, who finished third.
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| Professional dancer Kym Johnson and Donny Osmond are the new champions of "Dancing With the Stars." |
"You are born to perform," the judges told Osmond earlier during the two-hour season finale of the hit series.
The
entertainer beamed as he held up the trophy with his professional
dancing partner Kym Johnson, then ran into the audience and brought his
sister Marie onto the dance floor to celebrate.
Donny Osmond
has been a crowd favorite, working hard to learn his routines, throwing
himself fully into the character of each dance and playfully making fun
of his age. (At almost 52, he was decades older than some of his
competitors.)
His sister Marie, who famously fainted when she was a contestant on an earlier season of "Dancing With the Stars," was a frequent supporter in the audience.
Tuesday's
finale featured a last dance from the three finalists. Osmond and
Johnson danced a sultry tango that judge Carrie Ann Inaba called
"artistry in motion."
Mya
performed a jive with her partner Dmitry Chaplin. From the start, she
was one of the best and most polished celebrity dancers of the season,
receiving several perfect scores from the judges but also frequent
criticism that more was expected from her given her talent.
Some
viewers felt the judges were too hard on her, while others argued she
had more dancing experience than other contestants and had an edge over
those who were novices.
Perhaps the biggest surprise of the show was Osbourne,
the daughter of rocker Ozzy Osbourne. She was a standout contestant
since the first week of competition when she danced an elegant waltz
that left her mother, Sharon, in tears in the audience.
Osbourne
and her dancing partner Louis van Amstel reprised the dance for the
finale with similar results. The performance left the audience chanting
her name, while Osbourne, her family, van Amstel and one of the judges
teared up.
"You are a ballroom princess," said judge Bruno Tonioli.
Osbourne
had her share of stumbles and mistakes during the competition but
seemed to charm viewers with her quirky personality and received
consistent praise from the judges for her progress.
The season
began with 16 contestants with varying degrees of celebrity trying to
impress the judges and viewers with their newly learned ballroom
dancing moves. As in past editions of the show, most of the stars came
from the worlds of entertainment, sports and fashion.
Politics also was represented in the form of former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay,
perhaps the most talked about contestant of the season. DeLay pulled
out of the competition a few weeks after its start because of painful
stress fractures in both of his feet but not before gyrating to "Wild
Thing" and performing dances such as the tango and samba. DeLay
returned to the show for the finale Tuesday night, dancing the Texas
Two Step.
Some of the other contestants this season included
singers Aaron Carter and Macy Gray; models Kathy Ireland and Joanna
Krupa; actors Ashley Hamilton and Debi Mazar; television stars Mark
Dacascos and Melissa Joan Hart and sports figures Natalie Coughlin,
Chuck Liddell, Michael Irvin and Louie Vito.
This was the ninth season of "Dancing With the Stars."