Milo Manheim says getting 'robbed' on Dancing With the Stars worked in his favor tram

Milo Manheim took home something more valuable than the Mirrorball trophy from season 27 of Dancing With the Stars: an enduring underdog narrative.

The star of Disney's Zombies franchise excelled on his season of the popular reality competition series. But when the 2018 finale came, he lost to radio personality Bobby Bones and pro Sharna Burgess, despite their receiving the lowest judges' scores and, conversely, Manheim and pro partner Witney Carson receiving two perfect scores.

Manheim was asked on a recent appearance on the Zack Sang Show with the rest of the Zombies core cast if he was still "haunted" by the loss, because he "came so close."

"To be honest, I feel like getting second place worked out in my favor, because I'm reminded to this day, that I was robbed," Manheim said,

Playfully backtracking, he clarified, "I wouldn't even say that,... I guess it's been long enough."

"People come up all the time now, and they're just like, 'You killed Dancing with the Stars. And I don't think I would be getting that validation had I won. So, it's really nice," he said.

More than the continued validation, Manheim expressed that, as a "very political man," he's "grateful that they changed the voting system after that year."

Going into season 28, Dancing With the Stars made a slight tweak to its official voting system. The basic procedure remains the same: the judges grade each couple's dance on a scale from 1-10; that combined score of 3-30 or 4-40 points, depending the number of judges, is then converted into a percentage based on the total number of points given out that night; that percentage is added to the total percentage of North American audience votes cast for each couple, and the pair with the lowest overall sum is eliminated.

Following a string of highly qualified celebrity dancers being eliminated in favor of fan-favorites who, like Bones, didn't necessarily show as much technical prowess, DWTS implemented a policy whereby the judges are able to intervene and save a talented couple from elimination where they see fit.

"The fact that I was able to let make them look at the system a little bit more, that's like, the best thing I could have possibly hoped for," Manheim said.

When the conversation turned to the subject of their costar in the Zombies sequels, Chandler Kinney, who also fell just short of the Mirrorball on Dancing With the Stars season 33, Manheim sighed.

"I wasn't even worried for Chandler. I was like, 'All right, she's going to avenge me.' And then, yeah, same thing happened to her. I don't want to say rigged, because it's not rigged...but Chandler killed that thing," said Manheim, who is the son of actress Camryn Manheim.

Kinney placing third and Milo Manheim placing second are just two DWTS outcomes that some fans have contested over the years, with Manheim's loss continuing to generate consternation. In 2024, former DWTS pro and judge, and current co-host Julianne Hough named Bones as a winner she "strongly disagreed with."

"I think it's because the fanbase, right? It's all about fanbase on that show. He was not the best dancer," Hough said.

Bones agreed with Hough's take: "I was the worst dancer. I take pride in that. Now, I tried as hard as anybody in the history of the show, but I can't dance now, couldn't dance then," he said, then addressed his fans. "But you know who took down the big evil empire of dance? Well, it's not evil or an empire — but me and you! We did it together."