"My confidence is back, I believe in myself more now," she said, while Chmerkovskiy said, "We have no regrets ... it's up to the people."

Kimmel, putting the shocking elimination into clear perspective said, "I blame America for this.

"There's certain people that are clearly better than others on the show dancing-wise," he said, noting viewers don’t usually vote for the front-runners under the rationale others will.

As we previously reported, Chmerkovskiy had a run-in with judge Carrie Ann Inaba on last week's program, as Inaba's nitpicking toward Brandy and Chmerkovskiy boiled over at the end of the pair's cha cha, when Chmerkovskiy told Inaba, "Don't worry about it," with a scowl.

After Inaba told them their dance's shortcoming had "a lot to do with the choreography," Chmerkovskiy said, "It's all me, I'll take the blame," to which Inaba coolly responded, "Good -- I'm glad you do."