Ilona Maher had her tour dates locked in. “Drumroll please… VERY excited to announce I’ll be joining the Dancing with the Stars Tour a little bit early starting on April 2nd in Phoenix, AZ, and dancing through the second show in Los Angeles on April 6th. See you there!”,” last season’s runner-up posted on Instagram last month. Phoenix on April 2. Los Angeles on April 6. A short run, but enough to bring the energy back to the stage. It all should have been smooth for the rugby star with her DWTS pro partner Alan Bersten. But Hello? It wasn’t the case this time for the Rugby star as she became stuck in the night she wasn’t ready for. Not in choreography. Not in rehearsal but trapped in a problem she wasn’t able to solve! Well, what was it?

Well, let’s just say Ilona Maher’s Dancing With the Stars journey isn’t just about the cha-cha and quickstep, but it’s also about survival. And on this particular night, survival meant figuring out how to open a door. Stuck on the DWTS tour bus in the middle of the night, desperate for a bathroom break, Maher turned to social media for help, she posted a story on 2 April with her picture which had a portion of her face only visible in the bottom right corner of the frame and her expression appeared of that being frustrated or distressed, with her hand resting against their cheek in a dim bus setting.

Her caption read: “I’m on the DWTS tour bus, and I literally cannot figure out how to open the doors to go pee,” she shared in a late-night rant. “Everyone is sleeping. I have tried everything. Send help. I am getting irrationally angry. If this continues, I’m gonna knock this door down.”

Her frustration only grew as she pondered the reality of tour life. “Is this tour lyfe? Should you not need to pee like normal people?” she asked before weighing her options. “Send help or at least like a bottle to pee in. Taking calming breaths now.” Help arrived, sort of. Choreographer Ezra Sosa shared the video on his Instagram story, demonstrating how to open the door. But Maher wasn’t convinced. Sharing the clip, she captioned it: “Well, that is on the outside. I needed the switch on the inside.”

Whether she found a way out or not, we don’t know—there were no updates. But one thing is clear: last year’s DWTS runner-up didn’t have an easy run to the finale last year.

Ilona Maher reveals initial DWTS struggles

Ilona Maher has always been a fierce competitor on the rugby field, but stepping onto the Dancing with the Stars stage was a whole new challenge. In the first week of Season 33, she found herself at the bottom of the leaderboard, struggling to master the precise movements and timing required for ballroom dance. “I knew I could do better,” Maher admitted on the House of Maher podcast, frustrated by her own perfectionism. And why won’t it be the case? The athlete who used to dominate in her sports suddenly felt out of sync.

While DWTS fans saw Maher improve each week, what they didn’t see were the silent battles behind the scenes. When asked about the toughest moments that didn’t make it into the pre-dance package, she revealed, “I just got very silent at times ’cause I didn’t know what was going on… I just couldn’t get it right. It was so out of balance for me.” The confidence she had in rugby didn’t translate seamlessly to dance, which made the process even more frustrating.

Maher credits her dance partner, Alan Bersten, for helping her push through the struggle. Unlike rugby, where instinct takes over, ballroom dancing demands something else! Something entirely different, and those qualities she had to develop from scratch. “Alan and I are a team, but also he’s the coach, and I’m the player,” Maher explained. “He’d tell me to do one thing with my hand, and I couldn’t do it. Then I’d try to do what he was saying with my foot, and it just wouldn’t link up for me.”

As the weeks went on, Maher turned her struggles into motivation, climbing up the scoreboard with each performance. By the finale, she and Bersten had transformed into one of the strongest duos of the season, finishing as the runner-up.