The actress talks ETonline about being pregnant during the reality competition, plus watch an exclusive clip of the finale.
Tonight, the fourth season of Project Runway: All Stars comes to an end and host Alyssa Milano says it is a “pressure cooker” of emotion. Yet, all the stress wasn’t only on Dmitry Sholokhov, Helen Castillo, and Sonjia Williams, the final three contestants tasked with designing a collection in just four days.
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The reality competition host reveals it was also stressful for the judges, who would go through two stages of emotions each week -- 1) Anxiety over sending the right person home, 2) Excitement and anticipation for the next runway -- as they determined who will win. “[It was full of] nerves and anxiety,” Milano tells ETonline about the feeling in the air during the final runway.
But things were a little more emotionally-charged and physically painful for Milano, who gave birth to her second child just three weeks after taping ended. “I had contractions throughout the entire finale,” she admits adding that things were “a lot more weepy.”
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“Our showrunners were constantly telling me, ‘You have to be strong. Stop crying,’” Milano says, “because they wanted me to be a stoic judge.” And the host fully admits that she wasn’t able to put her emotions aside, even revealing that she cried for 20 minutes after one competitor was eliminated. “They had to cut the camera.”
While being pregnant and working up through the end of the third trimester is a feat in itself, Milano jokes that the most difficult thing was finding “shoes that didn’t have ankle straps.”
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And as for tonight’s finale, she promises it is one to watch. Check out an exclusive clip (above) featuring the three competitors as they start to stress about pulling together a collection in time for the final runway. And in the words of Tim Gunn, “make it work.”
Project Runway: All Stars airs on Lifetime tonight at 9 p.m. ET.