Tyler Cameron delivered his most emotional Dancing With the Stars performance yet, dedicating a foxtrot to his late mother Andrea and bringing judge Derek Hough to tears.
The former Bachelorette star danced with professional partner Sharna Burgess to Mariah Carey’s ‘#Beautiful’ during week four of the competition. Before taking the floor, Cameron explained how losing his mother in 2020 changed his perspective on life and why dancing has unexpectedly become part of his healing process.
Tyler Cameron honors his late mother Andrea
Cameron’s mother, Andrea Hermann Cameron, died in 2020 after suffering a brain aneurysm. She was 55. During the pre-performance segment, Cameron described her as caring, nurturing, tough and loving, and revealed that she had dreamed of seeing him compete on Dancing With the Stars.
He said the sudden loss taught him not to take opportunities for granted. That lesson has shaped the way he views the competition, where each additional week has become something he treats as a gift rather than an expectation.
Derek Hough becomes emotional after the foxtrot
The performance struck a particularly personal chord with Hough. The judge said he had not known Cameron lost his mother and became visibly emotional while responding to the dance.
Hough’s wife, Hayley Erbert, underwent emergency brain surgery in December 2023 after suffering a life-threatening cranial hematoma. Hough has previously spoken publicly about that frightening experience and Erbert’s recovery, making Cameron’s story especially affecting for him.
Hough told Cameron that he believed his mother would be proud and praised the progress he has shown in the competition.
The judges praise Cameron’s improvement
Carrie Ann Inaba also told Cameron that his mother would be proud, while Bruno Tonioli highlighted the technical growth in his foxtrot. The judges’ comments reflected both the emotional power of the routine and a noticeable improvement in Cameron’s ballroom performance.
Cameron and Burgess received 23 points out of 30, their highest score of the season to that point. The result was significant after the pair had spent previous weeks near the lower end of the leaderboard.
Dance becomes an unexpected form of healing
Cameron admitted that he never expected dancing to make him feel so alive. His path to the ballroom has included setbacks and losses outside the show, from football injuries that altered earlier plans to the sudden death of his mother.
That history gave the foxtrot a meaning beyond the weekly competition. Instead of simply trying to improve his score, Cameron used the routine to connect an unfamiliar experience—ballroom dance—with someone whose absence continues to shape his life.
A breakthrough week on ‘Dancing With the Stars’
Emotional tribute routines are a familiar part of Dancing With the Stars, but their impact depends on whether the personal story translates into the performance. For Cameron, the combination produced his strongest score and some of the most emotional judging of the night.
The moment also changed the tone of his season. After weeks of fighting to improve technically, Cameron showed a more vulnerable side while demonstrating the progress the judges had been asking to see.
Whether the breakthrough carries him deeper into the competition remains uncertain, but the week-four foxtrot already stands apart as a performance tied to something more lasting than the leaderboard: a son honoring the mother who once hoped to see him on the show.