'Dancing with the Stars' Alum Antonio Sabàto Jr Explains Why He Thinks the Show is 'Rigged'

Antonio Sabàto Jr. is calling out Dancing with the Stars.

If you forgot, the 52-year-old model and former General Hospital actor competed on season 19 of the ABC dancing competition with partner Cheryl Burke and ended up finishing in eighth place.

While reuniting with Cheryl, 40, on her Sex, Lies, and Spray Tans podcast, Antonio explained why he believes that the show is “rigged.”

Keep reading to find out more…“To be honest, I I think that that the show is partly rigged in a sense,” Antonio said. “Yeah. It is rigged.”

Antonio went on to say that he believes that contestants who have a dance background have an unfair advantage in the competition.

“It’s rigged in this way. First of all, if you’re not a dancer or you don’t have dancing skills from a young age, you’re not going to win,” Antonio explained. “I think that somebody who’s never danced — because the the whole premise of the show would be celebrities who’s never danced — but the majority of winners are dancers.”

Cheryl then pointed out that her former partner NFL star Emmitt Smith, who she won season 3 with, had never danced before competing on the show.

“Yeah, but he had moves,” Antonio challenged. “He had soul. He was dancing at church, you know what I mean? He had that thing going.”

Antonio then brought up Alfonso Ribeiro, who won season 19.

“He was tap-dancing with Michael Jackson,” Antonio complained. “It’s like me racing my whole life of professional cars, and you just raced in a track, I’m going to beat you every time.”

Antonio then said that he took issue with the judges’ need to support a contestants narrative throughout the season.

“The judges, they know who they want, so you’ve got to keep that persona. Like, you’ve got to keep the momentum of what’s going on in your private life. But I was surprised, sometimes you see people who have a huge following,” Antonio said. “But you’ve got to have personality. There’s just a lot of things that they want, that the show wants. Because it is entertainment and they need to keep the stories going, but you do have to learn the numbers. And when it starts happening where you have to learn two numbers a week, you you’ve got to know what you’re doing, man.”

Cheryl also pointed out that Antonio had an added challenge of working another job while competing on DWTS. At the time, Antonio was hosting the remodeling show Fix It & Finish It. She believes that Antonio would have done a better job in the competition if he focused solely on dancing.

“If I didn’t have another job and we were just, like, in Hollywood and me driving five minutes, and we had all the time in the world and also the time in the world to relax in moments where you’re not traveling, instead of taking red-eyes every single week, I think I would’ve probably lasted at least another week or two,” Antonio reflected. “If we would have been free of all the other craziness, I would have had a chance of winning it.”

If you missed it, a former pro dancer also recently called out the show.