Bristol Palin is lashing back at critics who believe her Cinderella run on “Dancing With the Stars” is somehow being fueled by her mother’s popularity.
“Think of all the people out there who hate my mom,” Bristol said last night in an interview with E! News. “Why don’t we talk about that?
“It can work both ways with me being Sarah Palin’s daughter.”
Bristol, 20, has been skewered all season for her flawed foot work and lack of chemistry with partner Mark Ballas.
But now, the usually demure single mom insists she is not the beneficiary of some Tea Party conspiracy and has earned the right to be among the final four couples dancing.
“I work my butt off here,” she said. “I rehearse every day. I am totally out of my element here. I think I deserve to be here.”
Last night, with her famous mother and father looking on from the audience, Palin got her best scores of the season with a mysterious waltz and sexy, leg-baring paso doble.
“This is what we’ve been asking you for,” judge Carrie Ann Inaba told her. “You came out of your shell and nailed.”
“I’m not a fake,” Palin said on the show, indicating for the first time how much she wanted to make it to the finals next week. “People can relate to me because I’m real — not Hollywood.”
After “Dancing,” Bristol told E!, she’d like to take another stab at television.
“Hosting might be fun,” she told E!’s Giuliana Rancic. “Your job would be fun.”
He biggest regret right now, she says, is that Levi Johnston, the father of her son, is not involved in their child’s life.
“Looking back on it, I was like, ‘Dang! I didn’t even try to make it work with Tripp’s dad.’ I really want him in Tripp’s life,” she said.
“I really want to fix him and get him on a better path in life. I tried to do that for a while, and it didn’t work. I am moving on. I have accepted the fact that I am a single mom and I have a responsibility to raise Tripp.”
That means there’s no time for romance right now — especially with Ballas, she insists.
“That is just one of those things that has no truth,” she said of rumors of a love connection between them. “It makes me laugh ’cause he’s my coach. He’s like my brother.”