Reality TV sweetheart Melissa Rycroft was the surprise winner of “Dancing with the Stars: All Stars” last night.
A third place finisher during season eight, she narrowly edged out Olympic champion Shawn Johnson in the show’s first ever all female finale.
Rycroft — who rose to fame on ABC’s “The Bachelor” — bent to the ground in apparent shock before hugging her partner, Tony Dovolani, as husband Ty Strickland and one year-old daughter Ava looked on from the front row.
“I have gotten married, I have had a baby, this is the third (best) thing that has happened in my life,” Rycroft told The Post, still clutching her mirror ball trophy.
The former Dallas Cowboys cheerleader entered the finale with 60 out of a possible 60 points from the judges. She and Dovolani sealed their victory with a near flawless “instant dance” samba to “Life Is A Highway.”
“The music wasn’t quite as resilient,” judge Bruno Tonioli said. “But you compensate with pure sex appeal.”
When the pairings for the first ever “all-star” season were announced in July, Giles Marini was the odds-on favorite to win. He was eliminated in October in 10th place.
“It felt like the cast was genuinely happy for us,” Rycroft says.
And they were.
“To be honest, they deserved it,” Johnson revealed moments after the show. “They worked really hard. It meant just as much to them as it did to us.”
And Maksim Chmerkovskiy — whose brother Val placed third with partner Kelly Monaco — admitted the right couple took top prize.
“I believe tony (and Melissa) deserved it more than anybody on the show,” he told The Post. “It was rightfully (theirs) the first time around.”