Dancing with the Stars

The dancing may be over, but the fallout from the surprising finale of Dancing with the Stars has just begun.  Fans have been debating for days whether Helio Castroneves deserved to win over runner up Melanie Brown, but that's hardly the biggest scandal in the Dancing with the Stars world right now.

It was announced this week that newly crowned champ Castroneves has split from his real life dancing partner and fiancee, Aliette Vazquez.  The official reasons for the split have been left pretty vague, which has led some fans to speculate that there may have been more than just dancing going on between Castroneves and his 19-year-old dancing partner, Julianne Hough.  Vazquez's publicist has refused to comment on the rumors, telling The Associated Press “There's been a lot of rumors and a lot of stuff said, and she just wanted confirmed that they are no longer engaged. There's no animosity, there's nothing mean. Just a simple confirmation.”

Though Helio and Julianne took home the trophy, their upset over Mel and Maksim Chmerkovskiy left some fans wondering exactly how the votes were tallied. Mel and Maks had the highest scores on Monday night and they tied on Tuesday, so even if viewers voted more for Helio and Julianne, wouldn't the result be a tie? It's possible that viewers' votes were counted more toward the final score, but nobody knows for sure what criteria was used to pick the winners.

The other big scandal of the week was the story published by TMZ, claiming that Marie Osmond's infamous fainting spell was staged. According to the website, Osmond insisted on having a writer on set at all times to feed her lines, and the scribe was more than ready with some words when Osmond was “revived.” However, Osmond's representative claims that the rumors of a writer on the set are “absolutely false,” and that the notion of the fainting being faked is “ridiculous.” Let the conspiracy theories begin.

One dancer who was definitely willing to cha cha through the pain was Mark Ballas, who had to rush to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center immediately after Tuesday's show due to a dislocated shoulder. It's unknown whether his injury will be healed in time for the Dancing with the Stars national tour, which kicks off in mid-December, but fans are certainly pulling for him.

Between the injuries, conspiracy theories, break-ups, and debates over the finale, we're sure to be talking about Dancing with the Stars for weeks to come.