Drew Lachey Chats On Who Will Be His Direct Rival On Dancing With The Stars And More

Drew Lachey tells People that everyone on Dancing With The Stars this season is competitive and having a lot of fun so far. He also is predicting Joey Fatone will be a “direct rival”. Below is more including his thoughts on new partner Anna Trebunskaya as well.

“I think there’s a bit of a competitive streak between Joey Fatone and myself,” Lachey says, jokingly. “We’re good friends and we go back a long way. But the smack-talk is already starting with the boy band competition thing.”

Other notable threats, he says, are Shawn Johnson, who is “very athletic and very strong,” and Gilles Marini, who he believes is the face of the Argentine tango.

Lachey, who calls the whole DWTS experience “almost like a political campaign,” doesn’t have any tactic to winning except being a “what you see is what you get” kind of guy.

“If they like me on the dance floor and they like who I am, then please vote for me,” he says. “If there’s someone else they relate to more, then they’re going to vote for them. In season 2, we didn’t have Facebook. We didn’t have Twitter. It was just more of how your dancing was, and how people connected to you as a performer and as a contestant on the show. So I’m going into it with the same kind of mentality.”

Partnered with Anna Trebunskaya this time around, as opposed to his mirror ball trophy-winning mate Cheryl Burke, Lachey says, “I think it’s going to be a whole lot of fun because I get a whole new bag of tricks, basically. For people who have the same partner, they’re going to use the same techniques and do the same style and teaching method.”

You can read the full story at People. Also, you go to MSNBC to see Drew and his Today Show appearance with 98 Degrees.