Dancing With The Stars: Kissing on the Dance Floor?

November 29th, 2007 by Nina Atwood

In Tuesday night’s season finale of Dancing With The Stars, Helio Castroneves and his partner, Julianne Hough, took the mirrored ball trophy. Today, Helio’s fiancee and girlfriend of six years, Aliette Vazquez, formally announced their split. Did the kissing on the dance floor between Helio and Julianne cause the break-up?

Having had some experience in the ballroom dancing world, here’s my take. Professional dancers who are married or in committed relationships know exactly where the line is with their partners. They don’t cross it because they don’t want to lose their primary relationship. For them, dancing is just dancing. It’s a rigorous and competitive sport, with no room for relationship drama triangles. In fact, many in the ballroom dance world now call it dance sport.

Preparing for competition is rigorous and intense. Partners spend hours together in close physical contact. If those partners have a spark of attraction, it’s easy to see how that might turn into more, not because they have the right ingredients for a real relationship, but because they give in to the attraction. So what happened with Helio and Julianne? Two things.

One, Helio is clearly not ready for marriage. Kissing is not necessary on the dance floor, and he should have placed his fiancee’s feelings first. What woman wouldn’t be uncomfortable witnessing her finacee kiss gorgeous Julianne on national television? Helio is probably attracted to Julianne beyond the level of the friendship they insisted that they share, and he allowed that attraction to displace his six year relationship. Aliette did the right thing by ending the engagement.

Two, Julianne is young – only 19 – and single. She’s clearly enjoying the spotlight and her rocketing career. For her, that kiss was probably an innocent part of the performance. She’s too emotionally immature to think about how it might impact Helio’s primary relationship. I don’t think we’ll see Helio and Julianne as a couple.

Will Helio regret his actions? Time will tell. If he truly loved Aliette, then I think he’ll come down from the high of the dance competition, contact with Julianne will wane as she moves on to other things, and he’ll remember how good his relationship was. We may see a reconciliation, but I hope for Aliette’s sake that she doesn’t get back together with him hastily. To really be empowered in a marriage, a woman needs to marry someone who places her first and foremost.

If Helio and Aliette are no longer in love and haven’t been in love, then this competition and the kissing brought out the truth of their relationship. In that case, we’ll see both of them move on.

Entry Filed under: Celebrity Buzz