With the semifinals just one week away, competition on ABC’s “Dancing With The Stars” is stiff. The judges are trying to separate the contenders from the pretenders, and this week the celebrities had to do two different routines: Ballroom and Latin.

Lil’ Kim and Derek Hough
Dance: Waltz
 
Kim has been one of the best dancers on the floor since the first week of the show. She’s stepped out of her comfort zone to learn dances like the Paso Doble and the Viennese Waltz.
 
She’s also managed to maneuver around some difficult factors in her pairing with Derek. “One major issue is their height difference, this makes their ballroom holds a little awkward,” said judge Carrie Ann Inaba.
 
Judge Bruno Tonioli asked the key question. “She has to be elegant, soft classic. Will she be able to pull it off?”
 
With her track record so far we expected as much from K.I.M. as she did of herself. She’s been able to be all of those things and more. But would the added pressure of learning two dances do her in?
 
“I think the slow dances are a struggle—especially for Kim because she likes to whack it all out,” Derek explained during practice.
 
“If I want to make it to the semi-final, I have to prove that I am the complete ballroom package,” Kim said.
 
Although we love Kim, we think she fell a bit flat in this performance. The music wasn’t so great, and in our opinion, the Queen Bee lost a bit of her sting for this dance.
 
That said, they still did a great job (technically) and we thought the spin she did near the end of the routine was lovely.

 
The performance drew a mixed reaction from the judges, and last night it seemed like a bit of a role reversal from the panel in terms of their critiques.
 
“You’re little, so you have to make every move big,” judge Carrie Ann advised. She wasn’t thrilled by Kim and Derek’s Waltz, but she said she was looking forward to what they had in store for the Salsa.
 
Judge Len Goodman, who’s usually pretty tough on the contestants, was pleasantly surprised. “For me, I was so shocked at the quality of the dance,” he said. He did mention that there were a few missteps, though.
 
But the most shocking reaction came from Judge Bruno who really should have run his comments past his brain before he let them fall out of his mouth.
 
“You try to be a lady, but you’re more comfortable being a tramp,” said judge Bruno. “I mean that in nice way.”
 
We’re not exactly sure if there is a nice meaning to that, but Bruno often tends to stick his foot in his mouth. Apparently Bruno doesn’t know what he’s talking about because Kim handled that slip-up like a lady.
 
In the end, she and Derek waltzed off with a 25 out of 30.