Former The Bachelorette star Charity Lawson is opening up about her time on Season 32 of Dancing With the Stars. According to Variety, the experience was more “damaging” than the 28-year-old anticipated.

Lawson was appearing on DWTS alum Cheryl Burke’s podcast, Sex, Lies and Spray Tans, when the reality star talked about her time on The Bachelor, The Bachelorette and the celebrity dance competition show. She shared that, as a therapist, she thinks Dancing With the Stars needs to have a therapist on set.

“I’m surprised you guys don’t. Honestly, I’m very surprised because quite literally, while Dancing With the Stars was great, I literally went through hell and back with my mental health in that show,” Lawson confessed to Burke. “It hit me like a ton of bricks.”

Lawson partnered with pro Artem Chigvintsev and ultimately came in fourth place. The reality veteran said on Burke’s show that she experienced a great amount of online bullying, which Burke said was shocking.

“Is it shocking? I don’t know if it’s shocking. I think to a certain degree it was expected,” Lawson said in response.

Like many Black Bachelor participants, Lawson received criticism and racist backlash while appearing on the ABC dating shows. She expected the Dancing With the Stars audience to be much nicer and more tolerant.

“I came into the Dancing With the Stars fanbase like, ‘This is going to be a piece of cake,’ only to be … almost to the point where it was so much worse than Bachelor and Bachelorette,” Lawson said. “I was getting death threats for existing … for not performing enough, for being conceited, for being entitled, for being the biggest bitch on the cast. It’s crazy.”

The Georgia native shared that she received hateful comments on both her own social media and via the official Dancing With the Stars account.

“It was so damaging, night in, night out,” Lawson told Burke, adding that she was forced to block and filter comments on her page, but the show’s account never did the same. “I had to tell Artem, ‘This is unfortunately what we’re dealing with and what we’re up against.’ If you look in comparison to every other contestant on this season, they don’t have this underneath their comments. … I’m just literally existing and being called a b***h.”

Lawson got emotional during the interview, noting that though she can only speak to her own experience, she is aware of “the difference that I have to go through this life as a Black woman and being on a reality TV show. It’s like the same things are just not protected.”

“I just had to suppress it and it got to the point where I was like, I’m just trying to survive,” she continued. “I’m just trying to make it out of the season. … There were weeks where I’d come home from rehearsal where I’m like, I literally hope I forget my steps and get voted off. … It’s a really dark place.”

When Burke asked Lawson whether she thought her race affected the conclusion of the season, her answer was swift and simple.

“Yeah,” she said.

Artem Chigvintsev

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