Alfonso Ribeiro pushed back after Alexa PenaVega said on a recent LexLos podcast episode that Dancing With the Stars is produced in a way that can shape who wins, rejecting the idea that the show is rigged. Ribeiro answered a social media clip from PenaVega's story with a blunt line: “No chance. We want everyone who’s popular to stay on. It’s basic logic.”
The exchange is drawing attention because it lands while season 35 of Dancing With the Stars is still airing and the voting system is part of the show’s appeal. Ribeiro is not just a former champion of the series; he is now a co-host alongside Julianne Hough, which gives his response extra weight when the competition's fairness is being debated in public.
PenaVega traced the remark back to a conversation with Hayes Grier, whom she described as “only like 15 years old” and “the sweetest kid.” She said Grier told her, “Man, you know what? I think this show is rigged. I have more votes than anybody,” and she replied that his fan base made that plausible because of the “millions and millions of followers” who could send in a text. Grier and PenaVega both competed on season 21 in 2015.
But PenaVega did not stop at saying the audience vote matters. She also said the show is produced, that it “even tells you a disclaimer” about producers choosing the winner “at the end of the day,” and that both text votes and judges’ scores count. In her telling, producers “know their demographic” and “know the story they want to tell,” which leaves the public-facing competition with a built-in contradiction: fans can vote, judges can weigh in, and the show still keeps final control over how the season plays out.
That question matters now because the current season has already moved through Dedication Night, when all couples were saved from elimination, leaving ten couples still in the hunt for the Mirrorball Trophy. The lineup includes Julia Stiles, Jackson Olson, Jenna Dewan and Harry Shum, Jr., and the competition was set to resume Tuesday night at 8 p.m. ET on ABC and Disney+, with streaming available the next day on Hulu.
For viewers, the hard answer is not whether votes count — PenaVega says they do — but how much producer judgment can override what the scoreboard and audience numbers show. Ribeiro's reply makes clear he does not accept the rigged label, even as PenaVega's account leaves the show with one unresolved piece of its own logic: what, exactly, happens between the totals and the final result.
