Dancing With the Stars Scoop: Cher Is Coming! Plus, Who Tried to Quit to Save Snooki and How Is Derek Hough's Injury?

Exclusive! E! News chatted with comedian Bill Engvall after Monday night's show and he revealed that he attempted to sacrifice himself to save the Jersey Shore star

By Tierney Bricker Oct 29, 2013 3:51 PMTags
Dancing With The Stars, DWTS, Season 17, BILL ENGVALL & EMMA SLATERABC/Craig Sjodin

Next week's Dancing With the Stars will be an affair to remember.

Music icon Cher is set to pay the ABC reality hit a visit on Nov. 4 when she will serve as guest judge (stepping in for Len Goodman). And Cher just won't be critiquing fancy footwork; she'll be pulling double duty as she'll be the show's musical guest, too! But it's not all Cher and happiness in the ballroom right now as fans were left shocked on Monday night when Nicole "Snooki" Polizzi was eliminated after scoring 27 points earlier in the show.

"This sucks. I'm sad. I wasn't expecting to go, but it is what it is," Snooki told E! News backstage after the show. "I wasn't ready to go." And she wasn't the only celebrity who was shocked by her early ouster as Bill Engvall, who was in the bottom three, revealed to us he tried to quit the competition to save her!

Engvall said he tried to sacrifice himself so that the pint-size Jersey Shore star could live to dance another day in the ballroom. "I was in such shock that I looked at her and said, 'This isn't going to happen,'" he told E! News. "And they literally had to pull me back, Val [Chmerkovskiy] and Emma [Slater], they pulled my shirt and the producers came up to me and said, 'This is just the way it goes.'"

His partner Emma Slater added, "He walked up really close and I'm surprised he didn't get in the shot. We had to hold him back!"

But Engvall isn't giving up, admitting to us, "I haven't said this all night, but I'm just really, really happy for us!"

And though there were concerns that Derek Hough would not be able to perform after suffering a severe back injury, the four-time champ pulled through for his star Glee's Amber Riley.

As for how he's feeling, Hough admits it's not exactly 100 percent. "I'll figure it out. I got an MRI today and it's a bulging disk in my lower spine, which it's normally my neck," he told us. "Anyone who watches the show knows I always have issues with that. It's all good, it's all good. I'm taking precautions and taking care of it and moving on. The show must go on!"

Tune into E! News at 7 p.m. tonight for much more DWTS backstage scoop!

—Reporting by Will Marfuggi