He tied with Good Morning America’s chief meteorologist Ginger Zee and Val Chmerkovskiy, and season 22 America’s Next Top Model champ Nyle DiMarco and his partner, Peta Murgatroyd.
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The victor of America’s Next Top Model is a huge advocate for proving deafness is not a prohibitive disability, and a successful one at that.
Bruno Tonioli was shocked to find out that DiMarco is deaf, saying, “I’m telling you”.
For his very first performance on the show, DiMarco earned a score of 23 out of 30.
Like actress Marlee Matlin, who played the intrepid political strategist Joey Lucas in The West Wing and who also can not hear, DiMarco hopes to use his elevated status to dispel misconceptions about the deaf community.
“I’m ready to take the world by storm and have them look at me and say, ‘deaf people can dance, ‘” he added. He was then rushed to the hospital, requiring four stitches just above his eyebrow. DiMarco told the judges that he couldn’t even feel the vibrations from the music, so he had to rely on his partner, Peta Murgatroyd, to lead him.
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“Growing up I didn’t dance at all, and I wasn’t sure if I could”.
