Jeannie called up her mom on FaceTime during her post-show interview with ET.
The cast of Dancing With the Stars has three judges this season, but Jeannie Mai has four. The Real co-host revealed on this week's episode of the dancing competition that her mom has been pretty vocal about her desire for Jeannie to do well -- so much so, that she jokingly threatened to deport her if she doesn't impress.
Jeannie's mom, Olivia TuTram Mai, gave a similar warning when her daughter called her up via FaceTime to get her reaction to her dance on Tuesday night.
"If you lose, you will have to go back to Vietnam," Olivia warned during Jeannie's interview with ET. "I would not want to see your face, so you better tell Brandon to teach you good!"
"You do understand that we are the American citizens right? You are the immigrant," Jeannie pointed out to her mother. "All joking aside, Mom, we did really good."
Jeannie and her partner, Brandon Armstrong, earned another score of 18/30 for their Cha Cha to "Roses" by Saint Jhn. It was enough to keep them in the competition another week -- but Olivia said she had to judge for herself.
"I have not seen it yet," shared Olivia. "I have to see with my eyes."
Jeannie speculated that her mom would be "very proud," despite her score staying the same as last week.
"I am not saying that I didn’t have things to work on, but I felt like I deserved a better score. So, that means I have to tighten it up, because I am not going to give them a reason to give me anything but an improvement," Jeannie told ET.
"100 percent," Brandon agreed. "I think there are people that judges give the benefit of the doubt to, like, 'He is older, there will be this.' ... She is not a trained dancer, so she does not have that benefit like some of the other contestants do, but she also does not get the benefit of the doubt. So, we are going to be the middle of the road and we're just going to turn it up every week. We are going to do what we have to do."
Charles Oakley and Emma Slater were the first pair to be eliminated this season. Brandon said it would have been "brutal" for anyone to get sent home so early -- and that it could happen to anyone, no matter how they scored.
"It feels amazing to be supported by cool fans," Jeannie shared of surviving another week. "You never want to ask anybody to do anything for you, so we are sitting here telling people to vote, but when you also put so much work into a dance and you want to keep your heart out and make somebody smile at home, I feel like that is the reward in it all."
Dancing With the Stars airs Mondays at 8 p.m. ET/PT on ABC.
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