Finnessey Hangs Up Dancing Shoes

Wed., Apr. 4, 2007 7:41 AM PDT by Gina Serpe

The beautiful people are going down.

A week removed from supermodel Paulina Porizkova's inaugural elimination, former Miss USA Shandi Finnessey became the second contestant voted off Dancing with the Stars Tuesday.

"This was such a great experience," she said after her ousting. "I honestly can't speak highly enough of everyone. The whole experience, the cast, all the other dancers, it was an amazing experience."

Of her dancing partner, Brian Fortuna, Finnessey said she simply hopes she "didn't disappoint him."

The former beauty queen found herself in the bottom two for the second week in a row before learning her fate. "Tramp"-stamped Leeza Gibbons and her partner, Tony Dovolani, were the other celeb hoofers facing elimination.

On Monday, Finnessy, who took home the pageant title in 2004, kicked off the night by performing a jive, earning her a respectable 21 out of 30 points and relatively positive critiques from the judges.

Len Goodman praised her routine, saying it was "a great job, well done." Bruno Tonioli called her a "a great bouncy, bubbly babe," which she seemed to take as a compliment, and told her to work on her "precision," while Carrie Ann Inaba told her to "work on your strength."

Unfortunately, the audience didn't give her the chance.

Finnessy ended up getting the boot despite racking up a higher score than several of her competitors: Clyde Drexler and partner Elena Grinenko received just 16 points while managing to stay in the game and former Cheers star John Ratzenberger and Edyta Sliwinska scored 20 points.

However, the basketball vet and TV funnyman have something that Finnessy didn't: a built-in fan base. As the ultimate rankings are a combination of judges' scores and viewer votes, it's clear which one the beauty queen was lacking.

Still, the show wasn't all a downer, packing in performances from not one but three musical heavyweights.

Josh Groban sang "So She Dances," while pros Dovolani and Julianne Hough took to the dance floor. Survivor also took to the stage to perform their classic hit, "Eye of the Tiger," during which all the pros performed a group Paso Doble, the dance each remaining group will have to perform next week.

The first song of the night, however, was from Ciara, who performed "Like a Boy." Joey Fatone and partner Kym Johnson also performed, again, their Star Wars tango for the crowd, after being selected by the judges to give an encore.

In the meantime, Finnessy and Fortuna may be off the show, but they're not off the tube just yet. The twosome have already signed on to appear this Friday on Quiznation, a late night live call-in trivia game on the Game Show Network. Finnessey already has a steady gig on the cable net, cohosting both Playmania and Lingo with Chuck Woolery.

If they can't win cash and prizes, they might as well give them away.