Bachelor Nation fan favorite Tyler Cameron is setting the record straight on his past dance experience before tackling the Dancing With the Stars ballroom competition.
Cameron, 33, revealed on the Thursday, September 3, episode of Hulu’s “Get Real” podcast that he nearly earned a dance minor in college.
“I was not a great dancer at all. Basically, I got thrown into dance classes because I failed out my first semester of college,” he explained. “My coach was like, ‘You’re gonna take dance classes to get your GPA up.’”
Cameron played college football at Wake Forest University, where he notably met longtime BFF (and previous DWTS alum) Matt James. To help boost his grading average as a student athlete, Cameron enrolled in dance classes.
“It was me and 30 girls. I was like, ‘This is amazing.’ I got to be the Bachelor before I ever went on The Bachelorette, you know?” he quipped to podcast host Amanda Hirsch. “None of the girls paid any interest in me, but I was in there giving maximum effort and giving the worst pirouettes and, like, the worst ballet dances ever.”
Cameron, who took ballet and jazz courses, further noted that he “was just there for fun,” but the experience was ultimately able to boost his GPA as hoped.
Years later, Cameron appeared on 2022’s The Real Dirty Dancing. Inspired by the classic film, a group of celebs paired up for ballroom routines. Cameron, however, denied that his Real Dirty Dancing routines could hold a candle to DWTS.
“I will say, that is like one-fifth of what we’re doing here,” he acknowledged on Thursday’s episode. “It was fun and I learned a little bit, but our dances are probably a quarter of what we do for our dances [on DWTS]. That was, like, a two-week show, but this is the real deal.”
News broke on Wednesday, September 2, that Cameron will foxtrot with pro Sharna Burgess for the chance to earn the Len Goodman Memorial Mirrorball Trophy. Throughout the competition, Cameron will have the support of fiancée Tate Madden.
“It’s so exciting, like, I get to plan the rest of my life around this lovely lady,” he gushed to Us on Wednesday of his engagement. “We get to do so many things together, and there’s so many firsts now we get to do together. … We’ve just gone through so much together, and I just see us doing these crazy projects, and I look over [to] her, I’m like, ‘You’re the only other person that’s crazy enough to do this stuff with me.’ I got so lucky.”
Dancing With the Stars premieres with a two-night event on ABC and Disney+ starting Tuesday, September 15, at 8 p.m. ET.
