Dancing With the Stars season 32 wrapped up with a breathtaking finale on Tuesday, and after three hours of dances and spectacle, Xochitl Gomez and Val Chmerkovskiy were named the newest DWTS champions!
ET’s Denny Directo caught up with the exuberant duo after the show, and the 17-year-old Marvel star said winning the coveted Len Goodman Memorial Mirrorball trophy “feels great!”
“Each week, we’ve had so much fun and every time that we’ve had a great dance, and we felt great about it, we had this great feeling,” Gomez explained. “And that’s the same feeling that we’re having here, you know? It’s just the same thing — but times, like, 10!”
For Gomez and Chmerkovskiy, the pair have been frontrunners throughout the season, and their partnership and friendship has been celebrated online and in the ballroom. The pair performed six routines that earned perfect scores — including their last four dances in a row.
“We’ve had so much love, from everyone, to the crew and to the cast and then people outside of just fans, you know? It’s just been so much love,” Gomez shared. “And that is what made me really love this whole experience.”
“I think that, by far, Trumps anything else,” said Chmerkovskiy. “You know, the trophy is cool, [but it] is the love that we received.”
As for the trophy itself, Gomez said she hasn’t actually picked out a spot for it just yet.
“It’s so heavy! I don’t know where it’s gonna sit,” she shared. “I’ve probably got it [going] on my drawer, near [my] cat.”
For Chmerkovskiy, this marks his third Dancing With the Star win, but the first time since the trophy was renamed to honor the late Len Goodman — the longtime DWTS head judge who died in April, at the age of 78 — and that makes the win even more special.
“It’s a huge honor,” Chmerkovskiy shared. “Len was a champion of ballroom dance…. he was very much pushing ballroom dance to the forefront of the show and therefore into millions of households.”
“And so, for me to hold this trophy in his honor, this season in particular, I was very much motivated by the idea of passing my ballroom education and torch to this young, incredible talent,” he added, nodding to Gomez. “And I think that Len would have been proud of that.”
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