Simone Biles Says She Was Stressed Out By ‘Dancing With The Stars’ Partner Sasha Farber

Olympic gold medalist Simone Biles admitted that working with partner Sasha Farber has been at times stressful, but she finally voiced her thoughts this week.

SIMONE BILES ON DWTS PARTNER SASHA FARBER

Week five of Dancing with the Stars was Disney week, and Biles was assigned a contemporary number to Moana‘s “How Far I’ll Go.” Though the pair earned a whopping 38/40 for their performance, the video footage from rehearsals showed the tension that came from practice.

“Sometimes I feel overwhelmed with Sasha pushing me,” the 20-year-old said. “I’ve just been so shut off and I don’t really voice my opinion very well. Ever since the Olympics, I haven’t had a break.”

The 33-year-old professional dancer Farber asked, “Why don’t you ask me for a break?” And Biles responded, “Because I’m scared. Sometimes I feel like in practice, you get super excited and I’m just like, ‘slow down.'”

With Disney week and the tension finally coming to a head, Farber thinks Biles is making progress. “I think Simone is finding her voice,” he said. “She’s standing on her own two feet, just like Moana did.” Auli’i Cravalho, who voiced the Disney character, sang the tune live during their performance. “I’ve matured a lot since week one,” agreed Biles. “I think it’s a work in progress, but it’s a start.”

“Such a great way to end Disney night with all of this uplifting,” said judge Carrie Ann Inaba after their dance. “It was such a high-energy, beautiful, powerful, yet poetic dance. You were fantastic, Simone.”

After the dances ended, Biles spoke with People. “Practice was a little rough this week,” she said. “We saw I nailed him in the face and ran out crying. It’s been a rough week — just tiring — but we pushed through. This was the hump that we had to get over. Everyone was a little tired but then you’re motivated again once we get over the hump, which we did. Hallelujah.”

Farber added: “This girl hasn’t stopped. Just because she had the Olympics, that is four years of preparation to get to the Olympics and then to do the Olympics and then get to this, I feel like her body is kind of shutting down too because it’s halfway through the season, but after this performance I feel like she’s re-energized this week.”

 

At the end, the couple eliminated was Erika Jayne and Gleb Savchenko, with Nick Viall and Peta Murgtroyd in jeopardy. Jayne and Savchenko did not even come in last place, scoring a 32/40, ahead of David Ross and Lindsay Arnold with 29/40. Rashad Jennings and Emma Slater scored a 32/40 as well. Biles and Farber scored the second best score, after Normani Kordei and Val Chmerkovskiy, who got a near-perfect score of 39/40.

DWTS airs Mondays at 8 pm on ABC.