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Movies & TV

22nd Aug 2019

Dancing With The Stars faces backlash as Sean Spicer is named among contestants

Rudi Kinsella

Sean Spicer

The decision to cast Spicer has not been well received.

The lineup for the upcoming season of America’s Dancing With The Stars was released earlier in the week, with one name standing out above the rest – Sean Spicer.

Spicer, the former White House Press Secretary who once declared himself as “one of the most popular guys in Ireland”, was named as one of the contestants for this year’s show.

Actors Zach Braff and Rob Delaney are just some of the names who have condemned the decision to cast Spicer in the show.

Braff described it as “disgraceful”, and said that he thought ABC “would never normalise such an incredibly horrible person.”

Meanwhile, The Lion King star Billy Eichner took to Twitter to say: “The cynicism and carelessness it took to hire Sean Spicer… god it’s all just so depressing honestly.”

Spicer has since responded to the backlash, saying that he hopes the show “will be a politics-free zone”.

“I’ve got two business that have gotten off the ground successfully, and timing-wise, it was a great opportunity to do something completely different that I thought would be really fun,” he said speaking to The Hollywood Reporter.

The full lineup for the show can be found here, and features names such as former NBA player Lamar Odom and actors James Van Der Beek and Christie Brinkley.

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