Two weeks after her shocking American Idol exit, Pia Toscano is ready to belt out another tune on TV — on Dancing With the Stars!
DWTS host Tom Bergeron announced Tuesday that the 22-year-old New Yorker, eliminated from Idol April 7, will take the stage April 26 to perform during the live results show.
Accompanying Toscano for the performance? None other than her rumored new man, pro dancer Mark Ballas.
"Thanks to our friends at FOX and American Idol, it's the network return of the sensational Pia Toscano," Bergeron revealed on Tuesday's DWTS, where supermodel Petra Nemcova got the boot. "She'll be singing and it features what promises to be an amazing dance by her close friend, Mark Ballas."
"I get to dance with Karina [Smirnoff] and Pia will be singing, which will be amazing because she's a ridiculously amazing vocalist," Ballas, 24, told Us Weekly backstage after Bergeron's announcement, adding that her song will be "slow and romantic."
When asked if he was aware of the collaboration prior to Bergeron's live announcement, Ballas played coy.
"We have no say for Tuesday guests," the pro said. "I got told after Tom announced it, and I was like, 'Oh! That's very cool.'"
Ballas and Toscano's collaboration comes on the heels of weeks of romance rumors. While an insider insists in the new issue of Us Weekly that they're not "officially dating," the pair was spotted enjoying a dinner date April 8 and again April 13 at L.A.'s Asia de Cuba. On the DWTS set April 18, "they spent the whole day flirting. Everyone was talking about it."
Indeed, Ballas' pals predict he'll hook up with the singer — who taped Idol at a studio adjacent to the DWTS set — sooner rather than later.
"Mark isn't hooking up with her — yet! But he will, if he gets his way," a friend tells Us. "She is totally his type: gorgeous and a musician."
For more on DWTS' meltdowns, hookups and feuds — including which celeb was this season's most hated star — pick up the new issue of Us Weekly, on newsstands today!
By Allison Corneau for UsMagazine.com. For more Channel Surfing, click here.
