Pages: 140
Cover: Paperback
Size: 6" x 9" 

Now that the fake tan dust has settled on the dance floor after Nicole Scherzinger and her professional partner Derek Hough's lifted the coveted mirrorball trophy on Dancing With The Stars, here are a few choice quotes by and about Ms. Scherzinger (rhymes with 'ringer') after her triumph ...

“I'm just so flippin' happy right now!”

"This has been probably the greatest reward personally, this whole personal journey. I've learned so much about myself."

"The experience has made me a stronger person, I've learned I can't control everything. I've learned to let go. It's been enlightening."

"Anyone who thinks this comes naturally to me should come into rehearsals. It's not easy."

"I don’t think I’m gonna return to the ballroom. I’m gonna return to the music. I did enough ballroom for a hot second. Derek can hold it down in my music videos with his ballroom, but right now I gotta go back to the music."

On the mirrorball trophy -

"I feel like I just won a Grammy ... A dancing Grammy!"

'It’s not about the trophy. It’s beyond the trophy. The experience and the challenge and everything you go through - it’s a lot of life-changing experiences in three months and it’s just so intense.'

"I'm going to give it to my mom because she's the reason I really did this show ... This is for her."

On her professional partner Derek Hough -

"Luckily I have a bomb-diggity partner and fortunately he never takes a day off and he's great to work with me!"

'This is new territory for me. I am in Derek Hough Dancing With The Stars ballroom land. It's good that I kind of don't know what I'm doing.'

"I've learned so much about Derek Hough - he's made me a better person through this."

On her tactics for the final - 

 "It's not good being a perfectionist. I decided to let it all hang out"

On their tango -

"After the tango, Derek and I started crying backstage ... it felt so good, and we knew we were going to be OK."

On their freestyle routine in the Final -

"Oh lord, seeing Derek and Nicole doing Proud Mary was worth suffering through every second of filler. Wow, Len is blown away and practically declares Nicole the winner. This was a fabulous TV moment - seeing these two dance this dance. Viva, Nicole, the judges give them a perfect 30 - and it is a totally righteous score."
David Zuwarik, The Baltimore Sun

On the professional dancer controversy -

"I like to see the growth, Nicole today is who she was when she got here - she was a great dancer and she still is ... There were moments you couldn't tell her from the pro dancers."
Niecy Nash

"This Nicole Pussycat person won. Imagine that? A professional dancer won Dancing With the Stars. This is why I do not watch it anymore."
Gilles Marini

"Nicole was the best dancer from day one. She was obviously on a different level than everyone else, but her choreography was more difficult, too. She absolutely deserved to win."
Edyta Sliwinska 

"Winning seemed like a foregone conclusion for 31-year-old Scherzinger, who has had years to become used to stupid costumes and elaborate routines as the leader 'singer' of the Pussycat Dolls."
Kat Angus, Vancouver Sun

"Nicole Scherzinger took home the 10th mirrorball trophy during Dancing With the Stars frenzied, bloated finale. And rightfully so. Yeah, I said it. Scherzy had dance experience. She did it for a living. Often more than singing. To which I say -- SO WHAT. She was on the show. She struggled. She cried. She initially got lost amid bigger, um, personalities Pamela Anderson and Kate Gosselin. But once the excess was excised, Nicole upped the va-va-voom and left the lesser in her wake."
Joey Guerra, Houston Chronicle

"Nicole Scherzinger and her partner, Derek Hough, walked away from the 10th season of Dancing With the Stars with the mirror ball trophy, and for good reason: Nicole was consistently the best dancer. She didn't noticeably learn anything or improve in any way. She was a highly trained dancer when she entered the competition, and she used that training (as well as a boatload of natural talent) to dominate throughout."
Linda Holmes, Today.msnbc.msn.com

"Nicole and Derek were best. Never mind that she had dance experience as a Pussycat Doll. They let her in the competition. She deserved the chance to win, too. Now, if they’d really like to up the ante, they should bring back all of the winners OR all of the second place finishers and give them a second chance. Either way, they’ve got 10 “seasons” under their belts and they’re ready for a best of the best. Even in that arena, Nicole would be a good bet to win. Watch her stuff and you’ll see. She’s remarkable (and Derek isn’t half bad, either)."
Bruce Miller, Sioux City Journal

"Congratulations to Nicole Scherzinger. Winning Dancing With The Stars is bound to be a giant career boost for her – just look what it did to former Dancing With The Stars winners like… um… oh, actually, never mind."
Stuart Heritage, HecklerSpray.com



Photo credits: (AP Photo/ABC/Adam Larkey)

XMAS comes but once a year. Luckily for television dance fans, D.W.T.S. comes twice a year. Debuting on our TV screens in the summer of 2005, Dancing With The Stars - in all its glittering, fake-tanned & sequined glory  - is now in its tenth season.

Yes! There are already nine seasons of D.W.T.S. in the bag and nine celebrity champions have hoisted that much-maligned mirrorball trophy. But how many of those triumphant, toe-tapping, tush-twirling, amateur terps can you name?

To help you out, the roll of honor is: Monaco, Lachey, Smith, Ohno, Castroneves, Yamaguchi, Burke, Johnson and Osmond. Each a star in their own sphere, but can they really be regarded as true stars of the dance world? Can they really be held in the same light as a Baryshnikov or a Glover [pic right on D.W.T.S.]?

Does Emmitt Smith deserve to be mentioned in the same breath as Bill T. Jones? Does Shawn Johnson belong in the same stratosphere as Ted Shawn? Does Donny Osmond measure up to Donald O’Connor? Kelly Monaco or Gene Kelly? … okay, you get my drift.

“It's that time of year again, when washed-up Baywatch stars and astronauts take to the dance floor to mambo with professional tanning bed testers in body glitter (who also happen to be very good at step-ball-achangin'). It's time for Dancing With the Stars!”
Cristina Kinon on NYDailyNews.com

“It's amazing what people will go through for a poorly made discoball trophy.”
Peter Gicas on EOnline.com

“It's tough to win on Dancing With The Stars; first of all, just to get on the show you have to be at least a minor celebrity. And even if we harbor D-List hopes, not too many of us are serious about dancing: the odds an adult will take a dance class other than ballet in a year are 1 in 142.9.”
Jon Sobel on BookOfOdds.com

On the Week One pre-show nerves - “There was so much anxiety in the room tonight with everybody stretching, everybody trying to remember their routines. I know what it’s like and I wanted to just throw out the index cards and give everybody a big hug.”
Brooke Burke

“Between Jake's awkwardness, Kate Gosselin; whose facial expressions look like she may have soiled her pantyhose, and versions of songs that are worse than some Karaoke versions, Dancing With The Stars has a new avid viewer!”
Rayanne Mulier on Examiner.com

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With the Dancing With The Stars season-opener only a few hours old, it is time to look back and critique the eleven celebrities’ opening routines.

In honor of the new ‘red room’ - a glass-paneled ‘aquarium’ as dubbed by Tom Bergeron - this Week One run down has a distinct aquatic flow to it.

“Dancing With The Stars is based on a fish out of water concept. And that at least one of the ‘stars’ each season has all the moves of a whale. A Tom DeLay, Steve Wozniak or Jerry Springer.”

D.L. Stewart in The Dayton Daily News (2009)

BUZZ ALDRIN [Cha-Cha-Cha] with Ashly Costa
At 80, Buzz was many people’s pre-show favorite to be this season’s whale. Being honest, he didn’t disappoint. This superannuated-hero moved as though earth’s gravity was his arch-enemy and the music was aural Kryptonite. But I dare any man half his age to look half as refined or dignified on the dance floor. And boy, didn’t he look like that cha-cha with Ashly was the most fun he’d had since he partnered Neil Armstrong on the moon. In fact, he had a whale of a time. Next week in the ballroom let’s see if can morph into a dancing dolphin.

NICOLE SCHERZINGER [Viennese Waltz] with Derek Hough
If a mermaid could swim up the River Danube and waltz to the strains of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra in the summer moonlight, then it would have come close to looking like Ms. Scherzinger. Nicole, you really did 'Take My Breath Away!' Looking as beautiful as a Pussycat Dresden Doll, she could have danced to Berlin’s pomp classic and still not have missed a step. Her performance was so transfixing, you almost forgot she had a partner. Did someone finally put Derek in the corner!?

JAKE PAVELKA [Viennese Waltz] with Chelsie Hightower
Surprisingly, The Bachelor - who had been my pick to be this season’s whale - proved to be a pilot fish … and a Jedi pilot fish at that. He stealthily used the force to guide his partner round the dance floor (away from the dark side - aka Darth Goodman). The one thing that almost grounded Jake’s low-level flying display was Chelsie’s flowing locks … which are in dire need of Hair Traffic Control.