Audience members interrupted Ryan Lochte's Dancing with the Stars debut by yelling offensive words at the athlete onstage. The shocking incident happened while Lochte was receiving critique from the judges after his debut performance on the show.
Two men managed to get on the stage while other audience members threw insults at the controversial Olympic swimmer.
It was DWTS judge Carrie Ann Inaba's turn to give her comments when some audience members shouted at Lochte calling him a liar. The camera remained focused on Inaba while she reacted by repeatedly saying "Excuse me!"
She even addressed the men who managed to get on the dance floor and ordered them to get off the stage.
The show was shot live but only Inaba's response to the intruders was shown. The entire ruckus was not shown on camera.
The show immediately went to a commercial a break. Lochte and his dance partner Cheryl Burke's reactions were briefly shown before the cue.
The show's host, Tom Bergeron, talked about the commotion after the break saying "We had to go to break because we had a little incident."
He then asked Lochte how he was doing and the Olympic swimmer said he felt hurt about the incident.
Carrie Ann Inaba later addressed the situation on social media, thanking the staff and security for handling the commotion.
A photo posted by Carrie Ann Inaba (@carrieanninaba) on Sep 12, 2016 at 7:35pm PDT
Lochte, an award winning athlete, gained negative publicity due to exaggerated stories of a robbery incident during the Summer Olympic Games in Rio, Brazil. He and his fellow swimmers claimed that they were robbed at gunpoint.
Authorities later said the athletes' stories were heavily fictitious. The U.S. Olympic Committee responded by banning Ryan Lochte from swimming events for 10 months.
The DWTS intruders have yet to be named. They were escorted off the stage by security personnel and were swiftly taken into custody after the shocking incident.
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