Laurie Hernandez Sheds Her 'Cute Laurie' Image With Red-Hot Tango on 'DWTS'

The 'DWTS' frontrunner showed a brand new side to her on Monday's face-off!


Laurie Hernandez
is “Cute Laurie” no more!

The 16-year-old Olympic gymnast showed off her sultry side on Dancing With the Stars on Monday, performing a passionate tango on the one-hour live face-off show, where pairs were pitted against another couple to compete for immunity in Tuesday’s elimination show.

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Hernandez was initially worried that her youth may be a detriment this week, as she and pro partner Val Chmerkovskiy were given the tango, a more “intense” dance that requires a lot of passion. Going up against Derek Hough and Marilu Henner, 64, certainly didn’t ease her nerves!

“It sounds like a whole other level of woman that I don’t know about,” Hernandez said of the tango, with a nervous laugh. She reacted with widened eyes after lingerie was bandied about during a wardrobe fitting and couldn’t contain her giggling after Chmerkovskiy told her to put her hand on his face during rehearsals.

“It’s not like I’ve ever had like a boyfriend or anything,” the gold medalist said. “I mean, I sleep with a teddy bear at night!”

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When it came time to dance the tango, however, there was absolutely no sign of Cute Laurie.

Rocking a sparkling black backless dress with thigh-high slits and a dramatic dark lip, Hernandez completely shed her All-American image for her red-hot DWTS tango with Chmerkovskiy.

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The week of rehearsals paid off. Hernandez and Chmerkovskiy snagged a 31 out of a possible 40 and beating the Henner-Hough pairing for immunity. (Carrie Ann Inaba deducted a point for including a lift in the routine. So in reality, Hernandez’s score could have been a 32.)

After the routine, even Chmerkovskiy had to ask Hernandez how she channeled her inner passion.

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“I was struggling to put in that emotion so I was like, I gotta pretend I’m smelling a really good quesadilla,” Hernandez adorably revealed.

Oh, to be young!


Dancing With the Stars
airs Tuesday at 8 p.m. ET/PT on ABC.