Paula Deen isn't crying over her exit from Dancing With the Stars.
The celebrity chef and best-selling cookbook author and her professional partner Louis Van Amstel were the latest couple to be booted from the ballroom on ABC's hit reality show after receiving low scores from the judges—Carrie Ann Inaba, Bruno Tonioli and Julianne Hough—all season long. And while producers have asked Paula to join the show several times over the last few years, the 68-year-old believes the judges "weren't crazy" about her being on DWTS.
"They have been from the start with me," Paula told E! News of the judges' "harder" critique of her "Vogue" routine after her elimination on Monday night. "It was apparent that they weren't crazy about me being here."
Whoa.
But Paula said she's OK with it, adding, "That's alright. I wasn't dancing for them. I was dancing for all those women out there that are sitting on their sofa. Get up and dance! Get up and dance girls!"
And during our chat, Paula also revealed she's been keeping a secret from her fans for almost the entire competition: She's been dealing with a pretty serious injury, telling us, "I've danced for six weeks with a meniscus issue."
Her decision to not talk about her injury is just one of the things her partner Louis said he loves about her, saying, "No one should know because we're not playing that card. We're not going to be the victim. We danced through it all, but now it's time to take care of health."
To hear more from Paula and Louis, watch their exit interview above!
DWTS airs Mondays at 8 p.m. on ABC.