Dancing with the Stars: Jaleel White Bursts into Tears After Dance

USMagazine, Monday, April 2, 2012, 7:52pm (PDT)

On Monday night's Dancing with the Stars, celebs were tasked with channeling what they recall as the single most defining moment in their lives.

For Jaleel White, it was the emotional moment that Family Matters producers were ready to introduce Stefan Urquelle, Steve Urkel's smooth, suave alter-ego, to their show during its seventh season.

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"Playing Stefan Urquelle was life-changing for me. I was apprehensive about playing Stefan, but the executive producers saw in me the man I hadn't become yet," White, who was 19 at the time, told the cameras. "It introduced a new side to me. After I played that character, people started treating me differently. When I played Stefan Urquelle, I showed people there was more to me to offer."

On stage, White and his partner Kym Johnson sashayed their way across the stage to Babyface's "For the Cool in You" while the actor worked his Stefon charm and sex appeal.

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"You are back in the game. You just glided through that rumba like it was nobody's business," judge Carrie Ann Inaba told the pair.

Len Goodman said "it was a confident performance" but "it was a little stiff in the arms." Bruno Tonioli agreed with Goodman's critique while countering with, "You played cool, you played smooth."

"I cant even begin to express how personal it was," White told co-host Brooke Burke Charvet. "That's my Mickey Mouse moment. Stefan Urquelle, Steve Urkel -- that's my Mickey Mouse.'

Not being able to hold back tears any longer, White broke down. "I love entertaining people," he said through sobs. "And I have been since I was three. I just wanted to complete this week."

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Despite their tensions (Us Weekly reported exclusively Monday that the duo got into a vicious fight during rehearsal, with White calling Johnson an 'idiot' after 'flipping out'), White made sure to include the dancer in his post-dance speech.

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"Kim has been strong for me all week," he said through tears, as Johnson patted him on the back.

White and Johnson ended up scoring a 25/30, tying them with Donald Driver/Peta Murgatroyd and Roshon Fegan/Chelsie Hightower. The three teams were a smidge under Maria Menounos and Derek Hough, who nabbed a 27/30.

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Tied with a score of 24/30: Jack Wagner/Anna Trebunskaya, Gavin DeGraw/Karina Smirnoff, Sherri Shepherd/Val Chmerkovskiy, Melissa Gilbert/Maksim Chmerkovskiy and Gladys Knight/Tristan MacManus.

The high-scoring pairs for Monday night's performance were Katherine Jenkins/Mark Ballas and William Levy/Cheryl Burke with scores of 29/30.

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