Kim Zolciak was forced to withdraw from "Dancing With The Stars" on Monday night following last week's health scare, and she has now started an online petition asking her fans to help bring her and her partner Tony Dovolani back. While rules are rules, her determination has brought attention to some of the judges, especially Carrie Ann Inaba.
"I feel bad for her, but those are the rules, and you know, I am a strong abider by the rules," Inaba told Entertainment Tonight at PETA's 35th anniversary event on Wednesday. "I am the Lift Police so the rules are important to me. I feel badly for her, but it would be unfair to the other competitors. There's no way she can come back."
Inaba is impressed with Zolciak, though, because she's putting up a strong fight. "Well, I've always loved somebody who doesn't give up, OK? I think that that's a wonderful spirit to have," she also told Us Weekly at the event. "You should never give up. However, I also like rules, and our rules say that she has to be out. I wish her well, though, and I'm very glad to hear that she's doing well health-wise."
Former pro Kym Johnson also had some thoughts on Zolciak's forced elimination. "It's unfortunate what happened with Kim," she said. "That's never happened before! It was quite surprising. But you know, that's the rules, and unfortunately for Tony, he's also out."
Alfonso Ribeiro, the former "DWTS" winner who was a guest judge the night of her elimination, also thinks it is completely fair that they had to remove her. "I think the show handled it right," he told reporters, according to Perez Hilton. "I think they handled it right because it could have been Kim going home tonight. And would it have been fair for her not to dance, and still come back next week, and have someone else go home? That wouldn't have been fair. So we don't know what the outcome was, but the rules say, you can't go the next week if you don't perform. It is truly unfortunate."
Many other cast members also weighed in on the incident, and it seems as though they have pretty split opinions, according to E! News. Pro Mark Ballas is on Inaba's side and thinks rules are rules, while Derek Hough would be "absolutely fine" with them bringing her back. Some of her fellow contestants, like Carlos PenaVega, are just happy she's OK but also wouldn't really care if they brought her back. Dovolani was just as shocked as anyone else that she was being withdrawn, though. "We didn't know until Tom announced it," he said. "I didn't know, but when Tom hugged me, I knew right away." Obviously, if it were up to him, Zolciak would be able to return.
