Denmark’s version of Dancing With the Stars made history by featuring a same-sex couple. And they won!
Jacob Fauerby, an openly gay actor, decided he would ask to be paired with a man if he was selected for the show. He and Silas Holst, were paired together on the show – which is called Vild med dans.
The pair are the first all-male combo in the history of the show receiving the highest scores in four out of eight shows and topping it off by winning with a show-stopping pasa double.
Speaking with Danish news outlet BT, Fauerby said,
“It’s a whole new experience. It is quite overwhelming. So many who write to me on social media with their own stories. I feel pretty privileged.”
Fauerby said in another interview,
“Not in my wildest dreams did I anticipate this…
We are a small country of only 5.6 million people, and every Friday more than a million people tune in to watch the show and many more watch it on-demand afterward. There are very few shows that everyone sees, and this is one of them, so there are a lot of feelings connected to it.”
For me, in my living room, when I dance at home, I dance with a man. When I was a child, I never saw representation […] So for me if a young boy, girl, or trans person has the opportunity to see that positive representation as part of a TV show that is empowering in itself.”
He also said that criticism dwindled after the couple’s initial appearances, joking,
“What happened after the first two shows is that people saw weren’t going to have anal sex on stage… It is feelings. It is sensuality. But it is not sexuality. It’s just two people dancing.”
Fauerby is best known as a member of the Danish satirical comedy troupe, Platt-Form. He and his husband, Anders, are fathers to two children.
Last month the UK’s Strictly Come Dancing included a routine between two men for the first time in its history. A male couple on the French version of America’s Got Talent brought audiences to their feet in a dance duet together as a protest against homophobia.
The US version of Dancing With the Stars has yet to include a same-sex couple on the show. Olympic skater Adam Rippon, partnered with female dancer Jenna Johnson, became the first openly gay person to win in 2018.
(Photo,screen grab; via Washington Blade)
