One of the best tweets that came out of the debacle that was the Matt Lauer-moderated presidential forum was something like “Matt Lauer went harder on Ryan Lochte than Donald Trump.” It’s true. Lauer’s brand of faux-journalism is to “shame” people who “screwed up,” and he did that to Ryan Lochte… but not Donald Trump. While we can all acknowledge that Lochte f—ked up, can we all agree that in the grand scheme of things, Lochte isn’t even close to being the biggest screw-up of the year, and everything around his scandal got insanely overblown? Maybe, perhaps? That didn’t stop several protesters from bum-rushing Lochte last night, on the first night of Dancing with the Stars. The protesters wore anti-Lochte t-shirts and they were prepared to get arrested for… protesting Lochte’s sad dance. Here’s the footage that aired live:
Here’s video of whatever just happened to Ryan Lochte on #DWTS pic.twitter.com/x8GAfa7aeT
— Brandon Wall (@Walldo) September 13, 2016
And here’s some video of what happened that wasn’t shown.
Watch: Two men wearing anti-Lochte T-shirts crash @RyanLochte's debut on #DWTS https://t.co/ZvjmZ58B1U https://t.co/Dq303wNo54
— TODAY (@TODAYshow) September 13, 2016
We’ve been talking a lot lately about protesting and the right to protest and the right to disrupt. I fundamentally believe that every single American (and non-American, for that matter) has the right to protest, to voice their concerns, to express anger and frustration with the system, with structural inequalities, with injustices big and small. But! This is what you’re protesting? Ryan Lochte appearing on Dancing with the Stars? You look at the world and all of the issues today and THIS is how you decided to take your stand?
Photos courtesy of WENN.
Totally staged.
Jeah! Reeks of public stunt for ratings.
I tend to agree. The judge’s reaction is a little too …. calm I guess … if it were a real rushing of the stage/protest moment, I’d think there would be a little more urgency/alarm than a whiny, annoyed “hey, I’m talking here!!!!” type of reaction.
Ryan’s reaction was a little too calm too. But he said he is a little hurt. LOL. I can’t read articles about this man. I always find his fake fans. This man hired fans and now he hired protesters. His fans are so ignorant. They still believe him. And the comments are so offensive. His new publicist is not doing a good job.
Uh, yes.
I never thought of that,, but you’re probably right. He’s a do*chebag, and I am totally boycotting this show. They have no standards by having a POS like him on the show.
Thought so too. Staged so people can feel sorry for him cause really nobody cared for him after Rio. And yes,it is serious in the grand scheme of things,when you are a guest in someone else’s country and you misbehave,which could have been left at that but instead fabricate this horrible crime n hate tale against innocent people. He accused people of robbing them at gun point, to make himself look tough he pushed it to make himself look like a bad boy. where his friends took to the ground, he with a gun pointed at him said whatever?! So yeah, it is dispicable, You cannot choose which journalist goes after because you perceive Trump (who has nothing to do with this) was taken easy while Lochte was not. I saw the interview, he called him out as did Al Roker. As for politics, both are horrible candidates, Hillary has been in politics her whole life, has been dubious n criminally negligent, Matt went after her cause her answers were soft. I have not seen anyone take it easy on Trump, he’s ridiculed, questioned n hated. Which ever candidate you go for, its going to be disastrous.
Hillary is a shady woman with a very questionable past (and Im tired of seeing all this valid criticism deflected to sexism), but she wouldnt be the first or shadiest president of the USA. Not by a long margin.
Donald Trump could easily qualify as one of the worst democratically elected presidents of global history. He’s not just bigoted. There’s been bigoted candidates before. HE BASES HIS WHOLE POLITIC ON BIGOTRY. His whole campaign means going back 60 years in history. That’s what he explicitly and unashamedly promotes.
I dont like Hillary but next to Trump she’s Nelson Mandela.
A more appropriate protest would be against the shows existence.
Yup. It was ridiculous. No one cares so much about Lochte that they’d put this much effort into protesting him.
All about inflating the ratings of a show that is very long in the tooth.
The last season I could bear to watch was Emmitt Smith.
They got tickets & sat through the whole show just to protest Ryan Lochte? That can’t be real, right?
And LOL at Kaiser having perspective. This isn’t exactly the hill I’d be making my stand on either.
LOL! One of my favorite stories of the year. Great write up- people are so dumb.
I actually feel kind of bad for him, he is dumb and did something stupid but not illegal and not completely offensive. Protesters storming the set of DWTS? I haven’t seen this kind of reaction in a long time. It’s kind of sad because not a while ago we had a Sharapova doping scandal and Nike kept her. She clearly abused and played unfair yet Lochte is the big bad of the sporting world.
Um, making a false report of a crime is illegal ….
Still, it does seem a little overblown in the big scheme of things.
I thought I read that Nike dumped Sharapova?
Last I heard she was most definitely still with them, despite her 2 year doping ban.
Way to make me feel bad for the frat bro.
Idiots.
Which is probably why his camp approved this staged demo/ratings booster.
Nope. Still don’t feel bad for him. He got his DWTS moment interrupted – big effing deal.
The protesters didn’t even get that part right — he got to finish his dance.
Which lends more credence to the theory that the whole thing was staged …
They should have taken a quick second when the decision to cast Lochte RIGHT NOW THIS SEASON was on the table. It’s too close to the incident. Feels a bit like they are courting controversy ratings and that’s pretty tacky.
According to everything I’ve read about this, the casting was done months before the Olympics.
You’re absolutely right! Thanks for that info! So, was Ryan trying to up his profile with his faux “robbed at gunpoint” claims, do ya think? Dancing with the Stars loves a good “hero/terrorist-fighter/soldier” story angle, and they’ve had some memorable contestants that have gone through and done some amazing things. Lochte had trouble figuring out to pee when he’s out of the pool. So, I think I’m going with the theory of “he had a contract signed already and we know people aren’t happy with him, so let’s make sure everyone knows DWTS is aware of the fact that he did an idiotic thing”.
LOL
Manufactured drama.
In Ryan’s version of events the protesters will have been armed with nuclear missiles…
When he gets voted off, he’ll tell everyone it was at gunpoint.
Absolutely. What an idiot .
Thats what they get for putting a big, useless stiff like him on the show.
It’s all for the ratings. This show has zero standards. They pretty much let anybody on the show. Remember, they had Bristol Palin on the show. Why wouldn’t they have Mr. Do*chey on the show.? I have officially boycotted this show.
So stupid. Regardless I’m still not sure Ryan didn’t think that he was being robbed. He was intoxicated and didn’t think he had done anything wrong and guys with guns drawn speaking a foreign language demand he gives them money or he can’t leave.
He knew he wasn’t being robbed. A man acted as an interpreter and the broken sign was shown to them.
What exactly did they represent or support through this ‘protest?’
They said on Good Morning America that Ryan Lochte endangered Americans.
That wasn’t the reasoning I was expecting…
He endangered Americans, eh?
Sigh…
This man is treated worse than rapist and child molesters. Let’s save the protests and outrage for people who deserve it by doing deplorable acts against innocent people. Think Woody Allen and Bill Cosby.
Thank you.
Now if they were there to protest Rick Perry I would understand this better.
Exactly.
This is really just silly.
So staged! I can’t stand this man. And his fans are still defending him.
Hey, Trump seems to have fans as well. Pretty scary!
Don’t get it. Were the protesters from Rio, or Brazil because if not what do they have against this guy. And dislike him so much they risk public shame and arrest – ? Lochte’s a swimmer for gawd’s sake.
I see where it’s believed he insulted Brazilians by portraying their country in a negative light with the trumped up robbery claims. And he’s paid a steep price for his antics, with the swimming ban imposed and other punishments. But protests at a network dance show? I’m stumped.
They were protesting because they felt he had endangered Americans.
I thought they would be protesting in defence of Brazil but no.
He’s a tool!! And I bet this was staged by his camp. He’s not a very good dancer either so
Hopefully not long for this show. How they will spin him abandoning his team to the Brazilian authorities into a hero narrative should be interesting. Dragging the bottom of the barrel for this guy.