Ilona Maher Addresses Her NSFW Gesture During “Dancing with the Stars” Appearance

The ‘DWTS’ alum accidentally made a NSFW gesture during the Tuesday, Sept. 29, episode of the hit competition show

NEED TO KNOW

• Ilona Maher addresses the racy hand gesture she made on Dancing with the Stars
• The Olympian accidentally made a NSFW gesture while sitting between her former partner Alan Bersten and fellow alum Andy Richter during the Sept. 29 episode
• “I was holding a microphone and talking into a microphone,” Maher said on the official DWTS podcast hosted by Richter

No, Ilona Maher did not mean to make that gesture on live television. 

The Olympian — who competed on season 33 of Dancing with the Stars alongside pro Alan Bersten — was in the audience during the Tuesday, Sept. 29, episode of the show. As host Alfonso Ribeiro teased DWTS alum Andy Richter’s upcoming episode of the show’s podcast with Maher, 30, and Bersten, the camera panned to the trio.

While sitting between Bersten, 32, and Richter, 59, Maher pointed at the camera, then at the men, before making a gesture with one hand on top of the other underneath her mouth. The rugby player quickly put her hands down once she realized she had made a NSFW hand gesture. As Maher winced and covered her mouth in shock, everyone around her — including her sister Olivia Maher and DWTS champion Hannah Brown — laughed at her mistake. 

During the DWTS podcast, which was released on Thursday, Oct. 1, Maher told Richter it was an innocent mistake. “I was holding a microphone and talking into a microphone,” Maher said. 

“But you still immediately knew what it looked like,” Richter responded. Maher then blamed “idiot” Bersten and her sister for feeding into it. Bersten interrupted, saying, “Me? I had nothing to do with it.”

When she caught herself, Maher said she immediately thought to herself, “What did I just do there?” She further clarified that she was holding an invisible microphone and was talking into it because “that’s what we were going to do here today.” 

Bersten chimed in to say, “She didn’t know that we don’t hold the microphone on the podcast.” To which Richter quipped, “Right, and with both hands.”

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After the show, Maher took to her Instagram Stories to clarify what she meant to do on camera. 

“Guys, I was trying to mimic talking into a microphone,” she wrote over a selfie she took backstage. “Note to self: that does not translate with hand gestures.”

Dancing with the Stars airs on ABC and Disney+ on Tuesdays at 8 p.m. Episodes will stream the following day on Hulu and Disney+.