Hindsight is 20/20. Cameron Mathison is looking back on his time on Dancing With the Stars and admitting that, at the time he participated in the show, he didn’t want his Dancing With the Stars partner, Edyta Sliwinska.
On the July 22nd episode of “Sex, Lies, and Spray Tans” podcast, Mathison told podcast host Cheryl Burke that when he was cast, he actually specifically requested not to be paired with Sliwinska.
“I don’t know if Edyta knows this. I actually called Dina Katz,” Mathison shared. Dina Katz is the head of casting for Dancing With the Stars. “I said, ‘listen, I’m so happy that you’ve offered me the show. I can’t wait. I’m in. Just do me a favor. I’ll take, please put me with anybody but Edyta.”
The General Hospital actor, who plays Drew Quartermaine, explained that his reasoning was protecting his marriage.
“Because I knew, my wife and I, you know, we were going through a little bit of a challenge at that time,” he told Burke. Dancing With the Stars has a really hard schedule, which added to how attractive Sliwinska is, made things complicated for Mathison.
In the end, Mathison and Sliwinska ended up paired anyway – decisions about pairings take into account making factors, including height – ended up becoming friends, and finished the season in fifth place.
And Mathison has no regrets about the pairing now, having nothing but praise for his former partner, who he shared was incredibly supportive with his packed schedule at the time.
Mathison was still shooting All My Children, where he played Ryan Lavery while on Dancing With the Stars Season 5.
“She was a hero and she put up with me. Yeah, so we, I was shooting six episodes of ‘All My Children’ in three days in New York.
So, they would jam me up for when I was in New York and Edyta was there waiting for me, rehearsing in between scenes, we would rehearse in New York and then we would take basically red eyes both ways more or less. And it was a crazy, crazy schedule,” Mathison shared.
“Edyta was like unflapped, man. Like, she was, I don’t know, maybe she wasn’t, but she sure seemed like it. Like she was just like, this is what we’re doing. You know, I don’t think she was happy about it. Never complained. She literally never complained,” he said.
And Cameron’s marriage seems to have survived the challenge of his Dancing With the Stars season just fine, as well, as Mathison is still happily married to his wife Vanessa.
Dancing With the Stars streams on Disney+.
