“DWTS”’ Jackson Olson says ‘being an athlete’ helped him deal with backlash to Guillermo Rodriguez comment
“DWTS”’ Jackson Olson says ‘being an athlete’ helped him deal with backlash to Guillermo Rodriguez comment
Leigh BlickleyWed, October 7, 2026 at 6:00 PM UTC
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Jackson Olson on ‘DWTS’ Oct. 6Credit: Disney/Eric McCandlessKey Points -
Jackson Olson explained how “being an athlete” helped him face backlash over his recent comment about Guillermo Rodriguez.
The DWTS star said he knows how to mentally handle rejection, on and off the ballroom floor.
Olson and Rodriguez are currently competing on season 35 of DWTS, and were both in the bottom three during week 4.
Sure, Jackson Olson makes mistakes — but thankfully, he’s an athlete.
The Savannah Bananas star, who is currently competing on season 35 of Dancing With the Stars, opened up to Entertainment Weekly about how he’s faced the backlash surrounding his negative comment about fellow contestant Guillermo Rodriguez’s skill set.
Olson posted a not-so-kind message under a Banana Ball Championship League team Loco Beach Coconuts TikTok over the weekend, in which player Erik Ostberg recreated some of the moves Rodriguez did during last week’s “Yacht Rock Night” performance.
“But seriously how did you do this better than him with 2 hours of rehearsal,” Olson wrote under the video, per Cosmopolitan.
He deleted the comment, but faced his fair share of feedback from disappointed fans. Olson went on to apologize in an on-brand video with Rodriguez, in which they performed a lip-sync to Miley Cyrus’ “Nobody’s Perfect.”
When asked how he handled the DWTS audience’s criticism, Olson told EW, “It comes down to being an athlete.”
He continued, “You’re always going to get hate, you’re going to make mistakes, too. And if you make a mistake, you just have to realize you can come back from it. You can be the person that you know you are, and that was the thing I had to remind myself.”
Guillermo on ‘DWTS’ Oct. 6.Credit: Disney/Eric McCandless
Olson explained that, all week, he kept thinking, “Oh, am I a bad person?” Soon enough, though, he realized that he just had to get out of his head.
“I wasn’t making fun videos for a couple of days and people were like, ‘Jackson, we need you to make videos again,’” he admitted. “And that’s the only reason I’m on this show — I make fun videos and I inspire people. So, I’m like, ‘I just need to get back to that and back to inspiring.’ And as long as I can do that, then everything will be smooth sailing. But, yeah, you just got to get back to who you are.”
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The second baseman also noted that his athlete mindset helped him face his bottom three status on “Mariah Carey Night,” which saw him and partner Emma Slater up for elimination alongside Rodriguez and his partner, Witney Carson, and Ciara Miller and her partner, Brandon Armstrong. (Miller and Armstrong were ultimately sent home.)
“There are so many moments in my athletic career where I felt like I was going home, whether it was a championship game or whether it was a playoff game, or trying to get into the playoffs,” he told EW. “Everything about being an athlete sets you up for a competition like this.”
Olson said when he’s at risk of going home, he tries to remind himself, “OK, if I’m safe then, cool, I get to live to see another week,” rather than harping on the negative idea of being scared or sad to get the boot.
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“That’s helped,” he noted. “If I think the opposite and I’m, like, freaking out about it, then my mental side will just go away and I’ll have panic attacks, and freak out. I just kind of calm my nerves down. I’m like, ‘Whatever is meant to be, it’s out of my hands.’ So, you just keep going.”
Olson and Slater had a solid showing during week 4 as they danced a Waltz to Carey’s hit “Without You.” They scored a 21 out of 30, with judges noting he was “on the music.”
“I can see you almost for the first time,” Bruno Tonioli told him as Derek Hough said, “There was so much good in there.”
“It makes me happy to see you really tap into the love of dance,” Inaba added.
Dancing With the Stars airs every Tuesday at 8 p.m. ET/PT on ABC and Disney+, and streams the next day on Hulu.
on Entertainment Weekly
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
