What a night! Rashad Jennings and his partner, Emma Slater, were named the winners of season 24 of Dancing With the Stars on Tuesday, May 23, after a finale full of drama and a season marked by shocking eliminations. Watch their triumphant moment in our video recap above!
NFL star Jennings beat fellow finalists baseball player David Ross and Lindsay Arnold, and singer Normani Kordei and Val Chmerkovskiy to nab the mirrorball trophy.
Musical guests Hailee Steinfeld, One Republic, TLC and Lady Antebellum performed during Tuesday’s season finale, which also included appearances from former contestants and fan favorites Simone Biles and Heather Morris, who had been tipped to win the show before their shock eliminations.
All three finalist couples performed fusion dances that combined two of the styles they had learned during the 10-week competition before the third-place finishers were announced.
There was a gasp in the ballroom as Kordei — whose Fifth Harmony bandmates, Lauren Jauregui, Dinah Jane and Ally Brooke, were in the audience to offer their support — was eliminated alongside her partner, Chmerkovskiy. (Some in the audience booed loudly to voice their displeasure over the result.)
That left footballer Jennings against MLB star Ross, and after what seemed like forever in the three-hour live finale, Jennings — who had lamented on Monday night’s episode that he never won anything — was crowned the winner.
