Former Bachelorette star Tyler Cameron danced a foxtrot on Dancing with the Stars on Tuesday, and he dedicated it to his mom, Andrea Hermann Cameron, who died suddenly from a brain aneurysm in 2020 at age 55. It left Derek Hough choked up with tears. Read on for more details.
The Dance Earned Points
The dance paid off on the scoreboard, with Cameron and his pro partner, Sharna Burgess, earning 23 out of 30, their highest score of the season.”
Fans of The Bachelorette are familiar with the loss of Tyler’s mom because during COVID he often posted about it on social media. But Derek hadn’t known his mom died.
Derek Got Choked Up
Entertainment Weekly reported that Cameron’s “tribute to [his] late mom” left Derek Hough in tears on DWTS.”
The message about Andrea hit home with Hough, and he admitted it openly. Dancing with the Stars fans know that Hough’s wife, Hayley Erbert, underwent emergency brain surgery in December 2023 following a life-threatening cranial hematoma.
Carrie Ann Inaba said to Tyler Cameron, “I am absolutely sure that your mother is so proud of you right now,” and Hough echoed her as he became tearful, adding, “My friend, I love watching you. I hope to see more of you.”
Open About Grief
Before taking on the performance, Cameron talked openly in his pre-routine package about how dance helped him process grief.
The EW report noted that Cameron told Burgess, “I’m choked up talking about it ’cause I learned the hard way that you can have everything, you think, going and just like that it could go away, you know?”‘
He went on to say that his mom was “the most caring, nurturing, but tough, loving, best mom I could’ve ever asked for,” and noted that “this was a show that she dreamed of me going on.”
A Previous Roasting
The emotional exchange was quite a change from an earlier moment between Hough and Cameron because it wasn’t that long ago that Derek Hough got a roasting from DWTS fans when he got Tyler’s name wrong. AOL recalled how Derek messed up and called him “Dylan.”
Memes and jokes quickly appeared across social media, and Dylan Efron posted a video on TikTok that made fun of the mix-up.
More About His Mom
Tyler Cameron talked more about his mindset during an interview with ExtraTV on YouTube. He mentioned that dancing is harder than sports, because you’ve “got to let it all out there and I find myself fighting it,” adding, “It’s making me feel more open, more vulnerable than I ever have.”
He also reacted to judge Carrie Ann Inaba telling him his mom would be proud. “To hear Carrie Ann say that meant the world,” he admitted. He added that his mother “would have been kicking, screaming, yelling, just so happy and proud.”
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