'Dancing With the Stars' Season 12: Romeo Voted Off but Entertainer Says 'I'm Fearless Now'
May 11, 2011— -- Romeo was eliminated from ABC's "Dancing With the Stars" Tuesday night, but said the experience only made him stronger.
"I was terrified of dancing. It was one of those things where I just hated to dance. I was a big entertainer, but before 'Dancing With the Stars' and before I met [partner Chelsie Hightower], I really wasn't that good of a dancer at all," Romeo said today on "Good Morning America." "So 'Dancing With the Stars' definitely opened my eyes up and changed my life to have no limits. I'm fearless now."
The rapper, formerly known as Lil' Romeo, revealed he didn't dance at his own prom and even turned down movie offers because he was so afraid to dance.
"I definitely enjoyed this journey. People don't really understand how hard dancing really is," he said, adding that professional partner Hightower helped him come out of his shell.
"He was definitely not open to doing a lot of everything that I wanted him to throw in the beginning," Hightower said on "GMA." "The more he got into it the more he loosened up and kind of took it by storm and just really embraced the whole thing."
One move that Hightower proposed and Romeo rejected: shaking his hips like Beyonce.
"I was like, 'There's no way I'm doing that,'" he said on "GMA."
Throughout the season, judges praised Romeo's dramatic improvement and commitment to the routines, and the actor and entertainer earned impressive scores. The couple's waltz got the first 10 of the season, but then the duo tumbled to the bottom of the leader board.
"I loved the judges," he said. "I'm really used to tough criticism and I think that the judges actually made me better. They were on me when I messed up and they gave me praise when I did good and that definitely pulled me through. …I think they made a terrific ballroom dancer out of me."
Romeo and Hightower narrowly missed their chance at making the final four. This week the pairs had 20 minutes after performing their first dance to choreograph a second performance to music picked at random on the spot. They placed ahead of contestants Ralph Macchio and Karina Smirnoff, scoring a 52 out of a possible 60 points, but were still the couple to get the boot. Ralph Macchio pulled off a Viennese waltz and cha cha despite suffering from a painful knee cyst.
Chelsea Kane and Mark Ballas, Hines Ward and Kym Johnson, Kirstie Alley and Maksim Chmerkovskiy and Ralph Macchio and Karina Smirnoff are the four remaining couples who will advance to the semi-finals.
Hightower placed her bets on Chelsea Kane and Mark Ballas winning the competition. "When it comes down to the finale, it really comes down to who has the best freestyle. So at that, I think that Chelsea Kane and Mark will have a pretty good freestyle so I might say that they might take the whole thing," she said.
Though the competition is stiff, Romeo said he thinks Kirstie can go all the way.
"She's showing that age is just a number and I think everybody is behind her because of that," he said.
"Dancing With the Stars" airs Monday night on ABC.
