Four weeks after he pranced down the Dancing With the Stars staircase in a neon-yellow shirt replete with fluffy frills, Sean Spicer finally got the adulation he so craves from his former boss.
Donald Trump may not have found time to publicly denounce the meme video in which he violently murders media organizations, Hillary Clinton and comedian Kathy Griffin, among others, but the president of the United States did tweet his support for “good guy” Spicer in his bid to win the votes of viewers for his newfound skills on the dance floor.
In a bit of ingenious corporate synergy, Monday was Disney night on the ABC reality show. That meant Queer Eye’s Karamo Brown danced the samba to The Lion King’s Simba singing “I Just Can’t Wait to Be King,” The Office’s Kate Flannery did a Mary Poppins-inspired jazz routine to “A Spoonful of Sugar” and the former White House press secretary donned a Woody costume to do a quickstep to Toy Story’s “You’ve Got a Friend in Me.”
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Spicer had a big smile on his face—and has clearly improved since his debut performance in the season premiere. After heaping some compliments on the dancer, judge Len Goodman warned Spicer, “Don't get overexcited, because there's still a ways to go. However, it was a proper dance, well done.”
“That was your best dance!” Carrie Ann Inaba added. “You were meant to dance a quickstep, as Woody. You give good Woody! It sort of matches your personality. It suited you so well.”
Waiting for his scores to come in, Spicer choked up as he talked about how he had dedicated the dance to his father, who died of cancer shortly after the 2016 election. The emotion was undercut ever so slightly by his preposterous costume.
He ended up with a 19 out of 30 and his first seven from an individual judge of the competition. “That's amazing to see that kind of growth,” Spicer said, his voice cracking as he added, “It's so cool to get those scores tonight.”
