Sara Evans Recalls Quitting Dancing with the Stars amid ‘Traumatic’ Divorce: ‘Really Horrific Time’

Country star Sara Evans is reflecting on a turbulent period in her personal life that ultimately led her to very publicly withdraw from Dancing with the Stars in 2006.

Evans, 53, called the stretch a “really really really horrific time” in her life, as her appearance on season 3 of the ABC competition series came amid her divorce from ex-husband Craig Schelske.

“I would be on Dancing with the Stars, and you could see some of the episodes, my eyes were just blood red swollen because I’d been crying the whole day, missing my kids,” Evans said on an episode of her podcast Diving in Deep, released on Thursday, April 4.

The “Suds in the Bucket” singer said her marriage began to fall apart about six months before she signed on to Dancing with the Stars, and she knew she “needed to get out of the marriage,” even though she “didn’t believe in divorce.”

In order to film in the show, she moved temporarily to Beverly Hills with her kids Avery, 24, Olivia, 21, and Audrey, 19, and a nanny, while Schelske remained in Oregon, but would come down to Los Angeles on the days the show was taping.

“He wanted to be at every episode and come down here and be seen on TV, on camera, and also at the same time, he was trying to make a case against me to show that I was working and not being a good mom,” she alleged on the podcast.

Evans said the show’s schedule was grueling, and that she’d often have to fly out to perform shows that were already booked during rehearsal time. She was partnered with Tony Dovolani, and made it to sixth place before bowing out. NFL star Emmitt Smith eventually took home the season’s mirrorball trophy.

“I was killing myself. It was so exhausting,” she recalls. “I remember getting up at 3 a.m. and doing hair and makeup to be on all these morning shows… It was one of the hardest times in my life.”

Meanwhile, in addition to the stresses of her career, her marriage to Schelske was falling apart, and she’d often find herself crying while getting her makeup done for the show.

Eventually, she reached her limit and called divorce attorneys in Nashville. After an alleged incident while out to dinner at The Grove shopping center in which Dovolani had to step in to help defuse a tense situation with Schelske, Evans filed for divorce on Oct. 12, 2006.

“I had to quit Dancing with the Stars because the next day we were going to start the group dance rehearsals and because of the trauma that my children went through at the restaurant, I said, ‘I’m quitting,’” she recalled.

Though the star was still contractually bound to the show, she was allowed out of her contract if she agreed to give an interview explaining the circumstances.

“I remember having to go in hair and makeup and sit in some hotel room and do this interview with Tony Dovolani, and without telling the details… explain that my kids were traumatized and I’m not leaving them for five seconds, and so I have to quit the show,” she said. “I probably would have won!”

Evans sat for a pre-taped interview with then-host Tom Bergeron, which aired on Oct. 17, 2006. In the interview, she said she “would have had a nervous breakdown” had she not withdrawn from the competition, and that an undisclosed incident “was very hard for my children.”

The singer went on to marry radio personality and former professional player Jay Barker in 2008.