Jackson Olson Apologizes to Guillermo Rodriguez Over Deleted DWTS Comment With Lip-Sync Dance

In the Dancing With the Stars ballroom, we all fam — but Savannah Bananas second baseman Jackson Olson tested that family bond this weekend. After a social-media comment poking fun at fellow season 35 contestant Guillermo Rodriguez's dancing sparked a backlash, Olson apologized the only way the ballroom knows how: with a dance.

The drama started Saturday, when Olson's fellow exhibition-ball players on the Loco Beach Coconuts posted a TikTok of player Erik Ostberg recreating choreography from Rodriguez and pro partner Witney Carson's "Yacht Rock Night" foxtrot — their Sept. 29 performance to "Escape (The Piña Colada Song)" that went viral when Rodriguez ripped open his Hawaiian shirt to reveal a coconut bra and the words "DANCING 4 THE PEOPLE" written across his chest. The Coconuts tagged Olson in the comments — "Couldn't let [Jackson Olson] have all the fun" — and Olson took the bait. "@erikostberg21 but seriously how did you do this better than him with 2 hours of rehearsal," he wrote, per Cosmopolitan.

Fans did not take kindly to the comment, whether Olson meant it as a serious critique or a joke between ballplayers. As the pushback mounted in defense of the season's undisputed underdog, Olson deleted the comment — but the screenshots were already everywhere.

Then came the apology, delivered in the most DWTS way possible. On Tuesday, ahead of the competition's "Mariah Carey Night," Olson posted a video to his 1.2 million Instagram followers: he shakes his head and covers his bespectacled eyes with his hand in shame as Miley Cyrus's "Nobody's Perfect" begins to play — "Everybody makes mistakes. Everybody has those days." Then Rodriguez jumps up into the frame as the beat drops, and the pair dance and clasp hands. "To G and to all of you, from the bottom of my heart I am so sorry about my comment I made the other day and that it caused this much negativity," Olson wrote in the caption. "I love this guy ❤️ now let's do what this show is meant to be about.. DANCE 🕺 ily G."

Both men say there's no bad blood. "We're friends," Rodriguez, 55, told TV Insider. "We're competing against each other, but we're friends. We're having fun. He's a good guy." Olson said the two talked it out in person: he went into Rodriguez's trailer and they spoke for 30 minutes. "Let's clear the air and show people that we're actually friends and are not malicious towards each other," Olson said. His own pro partner, Emma Slater, insisted the vibe backstage is all support: "It's very much like that in the skybox," she said. "We're cheering each other on, rooting for each other."

The timing worked out: both men survived "Mariah Carey Night" on Tuesday. Olson, dancing a waltz with Slater to "Without You," earned 21 out of 30 — all 7s, the couple's best score of the season, on Olson's 29th birthday. Rodriguez and Carson's samba to "Obsessed" earned 13 out of 30, the night's lowest score, with Bruno Tonioli's 5 bailing them out — but the fan vote kept them alive once again. The eliminated couple was Summer House star Ciara Miller and Brandon Armstrong, whose jazz to "Emotions" scored 21/30. For the full results, see our Mariah Carey Night recap and the night's full song list.

It helps to understand why the comment stung. Rodriguez has been the season's beloved underdog from the start — earning one of the lowest scores of all time in the season 35 premiere, then sitting at the bottom of the leaderboard week after week while winning over fans and judges with pure enthusiasm. Last week, Carrie Ann Inaba gave the couple's foxtrot a 5 but praised Rodriguez for "working really hard" at his steps. Mocking the dancing of the guy America has adopted is a fast way to learn how the internet works.

For Olson, the collision of his two worlds was probably inevitable. He's a second baseman for the Savannah Bananas, the exhibition-baseball phenomenon, and the Loco Beach Coconuts are a fellow team in the Banana Ball world — the kind of crew where roasting each other in the comments is a love language. Primetime television just has a bigger audience for the roast. Week 5 is "Super Bowl Night," and both Olson and Rodriguez will be back on the floor. For more TV coverage, see Previously's culture hub. Dancing With the Stars airs Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET/PT on ABC and Disney+, and streams the next day on Hulu.