The two stopped by ET on Tuesday to discuss their fate in the competition -- and the controversy over Sean Spicer.
It's been another bittersweet week for Dancing With the Stars!
While fans of the dance competition show are thrilled we're one step closer to crowning season 28's mirrorball champion, many were devastated over Monday night's elimination.
At the end of "Dance-Off Night," co-hosts Tom Bergeron and Erin Andrews announced that Kate Flannery and Pasha Pashkov and Ally Brooke and Sasha Farber were in danger of elimination. The judges unanimously saved Brooke and Farber, sending Flannery and Pashkov home packing. Just hours after their abrupt exit, the two stopped by ET Live to discuss their journey on the show and what they'll miss most about dancing together -- as well as the controversy over Sean Spicer being saved from elimination yet again.
"[I was] a little bit [surprised to be leaving] because I felt like we danced pretty well, but we know this process," Flannery told ET Live's Jason Carter on Tuesday. "Here's the thing, the judges have a certain say, and the people vote, so it is what it is."
"We knew this when we signed up for this, so it's OK. I get it," she added.
All three judges expressed their disappointment over Flannery's elimination last night, with Carrie Ann Inaba telling ET she was "frustrated" that Spicer, who has received consistently low scores, has been saved by the audience vote, forcing better dancers into the bottom two.
"If he has the votes, that's the way it works. That's how it goes," Flannery said of Spicer. "I wish it was just a dance show, because I think for me, the process was so fantastic and magical and amazing, and I can't even believe my body got to do some of these things. Pasha's an amazing teacher... he's a seven-time national ballroom champ. Seriously, what am I doing? Every day, every dance, every week, I didn't think I could do a dip, we did it the first dance -- what is happening? Who is in charge? Who am I? It's nuts."
Pashkov, who was a new pro to DWTS this season, said he couldn't have been happier with his experience. "I was a fan of The Office before this for many years now, and I got Kate as a partner. I was super excited, but to be honest with you, I was very pleasantly surprised with her dance ability," he said. "I saw that she has so much in her and she has so much to offer, and I'm not sure she even knew she had it inside of her."
"I literally said one of the reasons I joined Dancing With the Stars is because I'm too cheap to join a gym," Flannery cracked. "The cardio level was very low before this."
"We just had so much fun every rehearsal," Pashkov recalled. "It was, like, entertainment for me. I don't need a TV, because I would walk in and six hours of pure entertainment every day. Joke after joke!"
And at the end of the day, Flannery feels really "proud" of her run on the show. "To anybody who is getting older and feels like they're taking themselves out of the race, put yourself back in. If I can do it, you can do it," the 55-year-old actress said. "I mean, really... I didn't know I could, but if you don't try, you don't know, so you gotta do it!"
Following no elimination during Disney Night, the past few weeks of DWTS have been filled with surprising exits. First, fans sadly had to say goodbye to Sailor Brinkley-Cook and Valentin Chmermokskiy during week six of the competition, followed by Karamo Brown and Jenna Johnson on Halloween Night.
"I would say that out of all the contestants, Karamo grew the most and that's so fulfilling for me as a teacher and a partner," Johnson told ET last Tuesday. "I think we were both really shocked that we were in the bottom and then we were getting eliminated. It was very weird. All of a sudden he just disappeared and I was like, 'Where's he going?' I was hugging Kate [Flannery] and Pasha [Pashkov] and he was just living his best life and you know what? That's Karamo, so I'm so happy. He left his mark on the dance floor!"
"You have to know how, in moments of challenges, to turn it into moments of triumphs," Brown explained. "I'm a big believer that if you can focus on the blessings in one of the hardest moments, or how you're going to grow, or how things are going to become better, then anything can turn into a happy experience. So that's what I did. In that moment, I was like, millions of people are watching and I just had the best dance of my life!"
Hear more from their interview in the video below.
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