‘Dancing with the Stars’ 18: Amy Purdy, Derek Hough get call from Oprah Winfrey

Who says that “Dancing with the Stars” doesn’t get the huge names? Sometimes, they just happen to come up via phone call rather than on the actual show itself.

During the new episode on Monday night, you had an opportunity to see none other than Oprah Winfrey place a call to contestant Amy Purdy and her partner Derek Hough before their quickstep. Amy counted Oprah as one of her biggest inspirations, which is one of the themes of the week. Oprah also promised to take Amy out to dinner in the event that she ended up winning.

Before we even get to her performance, we should ask the question: Is Amy going to win? We have to wait and see the results tonight before we can come up with a full-fledged answer to this question, but for the time being, it feels like she has a good shot. She is very popular despite being a relative unknown before the show, and she also happens to be a phenomenal dancer with an inspirational story. Traditionally, all of this bodes very well when it comes to being declared the victor at the end.

Now, the performance itself. Amy managed to grab a 39 out of 40 for a quickstep that actually led to Derek getting a little emotional. The only person to not hand out a ten? Judge Len Goodman, who was as grumpy as he often is. It’s nice to see Kenny Ortega as a guest judge tonight; after all, he is a far and away better choice than Abby Lee Miller again.

What do you think: Should Oprah take Amy out to dinner regardless? Share below, and click here to take a look at some more news (including a review of the results a little later). You can also sign up to get some more news worth dancing about courtesy of our CarterMatt Newsletter.

Photo: ABC