Chandler Kinney’s DWTS Halloween Dance Was Changed 2 Days Before Show

Chandler Kinney and Brandon Armstrong landed at the top of the Dancing With the Stars season 33 leaderboard once again — but not without some behind-the-scenes chaos.

“We did change half the dance Sunday night before camera blocking,” Kinney, 24, exclusively told Us Weekly after the ABC competition series’ Tuesday, October 29, Halloween Nightmares episode. “I was going to take that one to the grave.

Armstrong, 30, added: “[We changed] about 20, probably 23 seconds of the dance. I came in, I said, ‘It just doesn’t look great.’ And we worked for five, six hours on it. And then, she woke up the next day and came to camera blocking, hardly running into music.”

Kinney went on to explain that DWTS couples typically have their dances locked in by Thursday night. “This was Sunday night,” she said. “And then, we came and blocked [it on] Monday and now, it’s Tuesday.”

Despite the drama, the pair wowed the judges with a creepy Viennese Waltz to “Secret” by Denmark + Winter, ending the night with a total score of 32 points. (They earned an extra three points after winning immunity from Tuesday’s dance-off during last week’s Disney Night.)

Carrie Ann Inaba gave the pair a score of nine, noting that the style of dance they performed had a higher level of judging criteria than some of their competitors’ routines. They earned 10s from Bruno Tonioli and Derek Hough, the latter of whom quoted the late DWTS judge Len Goodman in his feedback.

“As Len would say, ‘Hold my gaze,’” Hough, 39, told the duo before standing up to give them a round of applause.

“To have Derek stand up and then also to even, like, invoke Mr. Len Goodman’s name in this ballroom actually made me tear up because as a fan of the show, like that just means so much,” Kinney told Us on Tuesday. “I always want to do my best and I always want to improve. And I think it’s hard when you hear a critique that, for me, I wasn’t able to grasp onto it because I didn’t know what it was specifically, and so, I just want that clarity so I know exactly what to work on.”

The high praise from the judges meant a lot to Armstrong, as well, especially since he looks up to his fellow DWTS pros, including Hough. “To see [Derek] feed into it, or even when he was like, ‘Oh, that was great choreography,’ like, that makes me feel some type of way because we work so hard and I push her so hard,” he told Us.

In addition to getting their highest score of the season, Tuesday night’s routine was particularly meaningful to Kinney as she danced to the theme song of her TV show Pretty Little Liars, which was canceled after two seasons on Max last month.

“Those girls are some of my best friends. They’ve been with me through this entire journey supporting me. They literally call me after every single night, and the show meant so much to me,” she gushed about her castmates Bailee Madison, Maia Reficco, Malia Pyles and Zaria Simone. “I think we wanted people to feel seen, and I felt seen moving through that process. And so, it was the perfect button on like a very integral part of my life. And yeah, it meant a lot.”

Kinney and Armstrong tied with Joey Graziadei and Jenna Johnson at the top of Tuesday’s leaderboard while Jenn Tran and Sasha Farber were sent home. The show will take a one-week hiatus before returning for a special 500th episode special on Tuesday, November 12.

Dancing With the Stars airs simultaneously on ABC and Disney+ Tuesdays on ABC at 8 p.m. ET. You can stream episodes on Disney+ the next day.

With reporting by Carly Konsker