Melissa Rycroft has come to the defense of Jewel after the singer blogged about the fairness of the “Dancing With the Stars” judging rules.’
Last week, Jewel hit her husband Ty Murray’s MySpace blog and questioned the fairness of judging injured competitors on their rehearsals, just days after Melissa was scored that way on the show. A day later, after the media picked up on Jewel’s post, the singer again took to the blogsphere claiming “gossip columns hijacked [it] and put words in my mouth,” adding Melissa is “gifted.”
And in her first time speaking on the record about the matter, Melissa said she wasn’t bothered by Jewel’s posting.
“I never took it for anything other than that. I think it definitively got taken out of proportion and blown up and spun around,” Melissa told Access after performing on Monday’s “Dancing With the Stars.”
Melissa said she sympathizes with Jewel because she too has had the meaning of her words taken out of context.
“It’s frustrating in a sense because we all know what it [means] to have something you say tossed another way, you know,” Melissa said. “There’s nothing going on between Jewel and I. We’re friends backstage. I love Ty.”
While things are good between the two women, Melissa revealed Jewel did call to apologize.
“She called to smooth things over, but I said, ‘No need, you know? I perfectly understand.’”
And Ty too jumped to the defense of his wife.
“It’s horrible the way they [have] blown it up and tried to make like it was Jewel against Melissa,” Ty said. “That’s not the case at all.”
Ty said the blog Jewel wrote, which referenced rodeo rules – ride or don’t get paid – was inspired by a conversation the two of them had.
“We were joking with each other that there’s not a competition in the world that you say… ‘Here’s what I did last time,’” he said. “I think rodeo fans, bull riding fans, really relate to that because cowboys not only [do they not] get paid if they don’t compete, but they don’t get paid if they don’t win. And I think she was trying to relate to fans of bull riding.”
Jewel herself worked to set the record straight last night too.
“The blog is really straight forward. It talks about the rule where, if you can’t compete, then should you get judged on rehearsal? [I’ve] never seen [that] in any type of competition,” Jewel said. “[I was] just talking about it as a discussion. It wasn’t about Melissa at all.”
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