Image Credit: Michael Becker/Fox
That date with Mark Ballas sure paid off. Former American Idol contestant Pia Toscano will perform on Dancing With the Stars next Tuesday, and Ballas will dance to her tune with Karina Smirnoff. The announcement was made on Tuesday’s show.
Toscano’s ouster from Idol two weeks ago proved to be one of the most controversial exits from the show in its ten-season history. Very soon afterwards, Toscano was reportedly romantically linked with DWTS pro Ballas, a relationship both she and Ballas have since tried to play down in the press. (Possibly adding fuel to the fire: Both Idol and DWTS shoot in adjacent soundstages at CBS Television City in Los Angeles.)
Toscano is also set to appear on American Idol tomorrow. Once eliminated from the show, contestants like Toscano are handled by 19 Entertainment and free to do various appearances on other network shows like The Tonight Show, etc.
After the show, Ballas admitted to reporters that he didn’t know about Toscano’s appearance until it was announced by Tom Bergeron. “We get no say on Tuesday performances,” the pro admitted. “It was all the producer’s call.” When asked if he plans to give Toscano any tips, Ballas replied, ” She doesn’t need my advice. She’s fine. She’s awesome.” — Reporting by Carrie Borzillo
Read more:
‘Dancing with the Stars’ pro Mark Ballas on Pia Toscano (and that pesky Len Goodman)
Pia Toscano isn’t dating Mark Ballas (wink) and we totally believe her (wink, wink)
‘American Idol’: Pia Toscano’s final performance — VIDEO
Yawn, when are her 15 minutes up? Getting eliminated did far more then winning would have.
Why do you hate her already?
Oh gee…let me guess…she will do a Mariah Carey song. hip hip hooray!
I love Mariah. She should sing “My All” and have Mark dance next to her with his shirt off…wooohooo!!
Yes, I hate her already. She is a bore. And she dumped her boyfriend of 4 years for a “date” with Mark. She is a star effer and social climber and most of all a phony. But no worries. Me and many others will just FF’wd. Can the stage possibly hold those 3 egos?
She didn’t dump them. They were already broken up. If you are going to read the gossip you may as well read the corrections too.
She broke up with her bf long before she appeared on american idol.
They hate her because they are ugly. If not on the outside (ya right) … but 100% on the inside. Pity them.
too true. and I don’t understand all the controversy anyway. A boring singer is voted off a boring season. big whoop.
Love Pia. Look forward to seeing her. I guess there’s no accounting for bad taste. Your loss–our gain.
Jealousy isn’t pretty. Then again, neither are you.
This is far less about Pia as a performer than it is about ABC and Fox trying to cut the premier audience of The Voice. It serves both networks and after the ABC shows all chat about it this week, all the syndicated shows that cover Dance and Idol will do the same. But how many non Dance fans will tune in for the results show? I won’t; I will try The Voice.
didnt like her on IDOL and will not like her on DANCING…BOOOO
Yuck. Can’t stand her. The people she is compared to, Celine, Mariah, whoever, are a million times better than she is. She has a nice voice but nothing I want to hear. AND SO BORING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
yay?
How is American Idol okay with this when the 9th place finisher is allowed to perform on a rival show while IDOL is still in it’s run. Totally superceding the remaining contestants who did better than her and maybe eventually the winner when 9th place got to sing on Dancing with the Stars. All due to a manufactured romance.
They haven’t done “better” than her, she was voted off because the teenyboppers want another cute guy to win, they don’t care if he/she can sing. Go Pia!!
She was booted off because she is a flaming bore. It took Idol 4 years to finally be bad enough to let her on in the first place.
@me – “Flaming bore”? Isn’t that an oxymoron?
I’m with “me” – she didn’t cut it for years and then didn’t make the most of her time on the show. It’s OK – I mean she’ll end up releasing a CD that will be mildly successful and then marry another “celebrity” or sports star and then raise a family while getting botox and making the occasional appearance on Ellen or some other talk show. Who knows, maybe she’ll even sit in on the View. Then, once she realizes that there isn’t a market for her anymore she’ll go into designing hand-bags and clothes. Haven’t we already experienced this? Oh yeah, Jessica Simpson. Let’s hope that Pia skips the weight gain and mom jeans phase though.
wow you “females” are soooo catty. Pia is gorgeous and talented. Im gorgeous too so I’m used to jealous females hatin’. Whatever!!!!!
Yeah, I was wondering that too. Before booted off contestants did the Tonight Show and maybe Ellen, and that was it..but nothing about this whole season makes sense anyway.
actually, they used to appear on Letterman.
They also performed on Live with Regis and Kelly
I’ve seen them perform on Regis and Kelly as well as the Wendy Williams Show. They perform with a pianist or another musician. But getting Pia to perform on Dancing is a bigger platform since that’s another high rated primetime show. They need to let the booted singers perform on Dancing as well.
Stacey, you sound like sour grapes. Get over it. Grow up.
How does Stacey sound like sour grapes? She has a valid point. I suspect Idol wants the publicity, so they are allowing Pia to perform on DWTS. Nothing more nothing less.
She’s being handled by people involved with American Idol so clearly they played a role in setting it up in the first place.
Rival shows? I thought they were both CBS.
DWTS is an ABC show and IDOL is on FOX. Both shows, however, film at CBS Television Studios, as it is a large facility that can handle live TV performances.
CBS does not own either show.
The teenyboppers are voting for the 17 year-old guy who looks like Howdy Doody and holds the microphone with both hands like a flute. He has a good country voice, but talk about awkward on stage!
I think that the walls that separated Idol and Dancing for years are torn down now. I think that Dancing’s producers probably talked to Idol’s producers about getting Pia to perform on their show. They must like her voice too. I think this will give Pia more performance time to do.
I adore her. She will have a very sscceessffuull career.
I think the void Celine, Whitney and Mariah left skews over 50. you know. The people who don’t spend alot on records. Especially since Celine, Whitney and Mariah are still around and way more talented than Pia.
Actually, older people ARE the ones still buying physical music. Look at SuBo and Jackie Evancho. Obviously there is an audience for female balladeers, or those two wouldn’t have gone platinum. Pia stands to do extremely well because she’s got the voice AND the look to appeal to a wide demographic. Just sayin’.
Canta Bonito!
She is Italian, full blood. Ciao Bella
I thought she was Puerto Rican and Italian?
Nice. Sleep with one of the dancers, and get a gig on the show. How pathetic is this? Seriously, she’s done NOTHING to deserve or earn this.
Lesson to the other female contestants: open your legs and get a singing gig on DWTS. Nice.
How do you know she slept with him? What kind of morals do you have when you make nasty assumptions about her. It’s comments like these that prove jealousy is the motive for many who don’t like beautiful women who can sing. Disgusting.
Pia is a w hore. She didn’t even dump her boyfriend of 4 years before she started going out with this DTWS guy. She has NO morals whatsoever.
And it’s obvious that she slept with him – what, you think that he just got Pia this gig out of the goodness of his heart? Idiot.
I believe Mark is not into girls – maybe he just thought she was a great singer, which she is.
You are way too emotionally involved in this whole thing…
And think about what you’re so upset over, it’s funny actually.
I doubt a dancer has that much pull with the producers. Clearly this was a PR stunt set up between producers of both shows…an odd union, but publicity is publicity I suppose.
Oh yeah, it’s also the same night as the Voice premier…AI’s motives make a lot more sense.
@ LOL all of a sudden you know everything about their personal lives simply based on what you read on Perez Hilton? Shows how pathetic you are.
LOL must a fat and ugly person to think such bad things of the beautiful Pia! LOL, lose weight and grow up!
She wasn’t vote OFF, no one voted to keep her ON. All of her so-called fans that love her so dearly are the reason she’s no longer on AI. They didn’t love her enough to pick up the phone and vote for her. It has nothing to do with jealousy, she’s just a snooze, no personality, the voice just wasn’t enough.
Wow!! You don’t know that! She is a beautiful and classy person and deserves everything she gets for her talents! Grow up!
I’m with Tina She’s hated and voted off by FAT women and teens. How do I know?90% of women are FAT now days
“Lesson to the other female contestants: open your legs and get a singing gig on DWTS. Nice.” – There’s a lot of money to be had in opening one’s legs. Just ask Kendra. Wasn’t it $600,000+ she made from one of her sex tapes? No idea how much she made from the rest of them. I do know she started a production company in order to sell them. So don’t even talk about Pia “sleeping her way to opportunity”. Not as long as CBS puts the likes of Kendra on its family shows.
Since when is DWTS a “family ” show? Have you seen the costumes?
Can you say, “E.N.V.Y.”? What a foul thing to say! She has talent and why wouldn’t she take any opportunities offered to her, including DWTS? She’s trying to get exposure and get a music career going. She was on Today, Regis and Kelly, Ellen, the Tonight Show…do you alledge that she is sleeping with Matt, Regis, Ellen and Jay, too?
GO PIA! I’ll be watching you not those losers left on that singing show that no one will remember next year.
Great, so happy for her she is sweet and beautiful.
Oh thank God! What would we do without Pia—our light, our love? Maybe she’ll sing the phone book—we’ve always wanted to hear her sing the phone book.
Can anybody say “tackyyyyy??”
Is Idol trying to lessen the impact of NBC’s The Voice. So they are loaning a arch rival one of their singers to lessen the impact of the other singing will all-star judges because people might be intrigued to tune to the results show of DWTS to see Pia sing and Mark dance? The Voice starts that night doesn’t it? Hmmm….Still very weird of Idol to do this? And overshadows the results of the others on Idol if 9th place gets such a perk that the others won’t get!
Yes. I suspect that is the exact reason why Pia is performing on DWTS that night. Idol wants to lessen the impact of The Voice by extending their publicity to a hit tv show (DWTS). Smart of them actually.
I never thought of that, good point though.
I think that Idol is doing this to one-up on the Voice because Voice’s people probably predicted that Idol was going to have a weak season.That wasn’t the case–this is a strong top 13 group on Idol. So they have Pia perform on Dancing with the Stars. I think this is going to hurt the Voice’s ratings a little bit, maybe make them rank in the mid 20s or 30s in the ratings.
she has to know this looks pretty bad, right? spread ‘em wide pia!
Only to people dumb enough to think a dancer has that kind of sway. She doesn’t seem like his type, either.
Mark’s dad has always been involved with production from my understanding. There is NO reason she should be on here. She doesn’t even have an original song!
It’s interesting to see how bent out shape people are getting about this. If this is the biggest issue you have going on in your life (that you’ll come on a comment board and bash a girl you don’t know about something that doesn’t reeeeaally affect you what so ever) count yourself extremely lucky! And then thank…whoever, that you don’t have complete strangers ripping you about things they shouldn’t even concern themselves with.
slut!
How is she a slut? Who did she sleep with?
Chris, I think HoHum was talking about lucille being a slut–not pia.
no HoHum was correct
Good grief, you are way over the top. You know her? I thought not.
Exactly!!
I don’t like Pia either, but I’m curious about how she will do on DWTS. Will she karaoke another artist’s song, or will she sing an original?
I knew Ballas and Derek had a band, so I thought he would play while she sings… but the article says he will dance to her song?
On tonights telecast, it was NICE to see Anna and her husband Jonathan dance again. They are a sight, God bless them!!!
I’m not a fan of Pia, I get bored with ballad singers anyway, but I hope Pia does go with an original. Would be a great time to get advance pr for her new cd. But I wonder if an original would be ready for public viewing by then.
When has Idol cared if a song, or an album for that matter, was ready for the public? See: Lee Dewyze.
When as DWTS ever used original songs in any of their performances? I doubt I’ll watch the episode – I’m just not watching DWTS yet this season, but from all the whining I’ve been hearing about the terrible vocals during America week, you would think people would be glad at least to have a decent singer on there performing!
Love her!!!!!!!
I love her too! Way too many jealous people already judging her.
Pia has a beautiful voice.To bad so many of you are tone deaf!And which one of you that are bashing have seen her in bed with anyone.If you have you’re as bad as you say she is.And so what if she is dating Mark,it’s nobodys business but theres.All you pia bashers need to get a life!!!!!
Go Pia!