End of the 'Dancing With The Stars SA' journey for former Miss SA

Listen as Terence chats with Liesl Laurie in the podcast, and then read more below:

Judge Bryan Watson remarked on what a difficult choice this was – “both ladies left their hearts on the floor”, he noted. “But on this occasion I will save Liesl and Ryan,” he reluctantly concluded. Debbie agreed that both ladies had implemented the judges’ comments from the night’s show in their Dance-Off performances, and she elected to keep Vanes-Mari and Johannes.

Judge Tebogo also decided to save Vanes-Mari, and that left the deciding vote to head judge Jason Gilkison, who said that for him, Vanes-Mari had given the “more committed and more positive performance” in the Dance-Off.  

The former Miss SA and radio host Liesl opened her run on Dancing With The Stars SA with the very first dance of the season, a Cha-Cha-Chá, in Week 1, and judge Debbie Turner predicted then that as her confidence grew over the weeks, Liesl would be “stunning”. 

Read: Juanita de Villiers voted off 'Dancing With The Stars SA' in shock result

In the two months since then, Debbie's prediction was right. 

Despite having to perform with a back injury in Week 3, Liesl powered through the pain and bounced back the following week with a scintillating Quickstep, after which Bryan Watson thought that she “lit up the floor”.

The judges had some issues with Liesl’s Week 5 Salsa, with head judge Jason cautioning her to try to have the same amazing communication with her partner as she had with the camera, but they were all blown away by her passionate head-banging rock-inspired Paso Doble in Week 6. “Now we see a completely different side of you! I really, really enjoyed it,” Debbie commented then.

In Week 7, Debbie was equally impressed with Liesl’s American Smooth, complimenting the way that she managed to communicate energy through the tips of her fingers, and last week she commented on the musicality of Liesl’s Salsa. But unfortunately this week Debbie didn’t think that Liesl sufficiently portrayed the characterisation behind the song to which she and Ryan performed the Foxtrot, Beyoncé’s 'Listen', and Jason agreed. “You’ve got to do the dancing from the inside,” he chided Liesl, reducing her to tears. 

“There’s been a lot of tears, but I did warn everyone in the beginning that there would be!” Liesl said after the result was announced. “I don’t leave this competition with any losses. Maybe the loss of my beautiful toes!” she joked. 

The vote count and ranking of contestants is done according to the international format rules and was independently computed by Deloitte and Touche and confirmed against the vote results determined by M-Net.  

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