With only seven couples left ahead of tonight’s episode of Dancing with the Stars, Andy Richter thinks the remainder of Season 35 could be a nail-biter.

When the fan-favorite — or rather, “fan-dy” favorite — DWTS Season 34 alum visited DECIDER’s studio last week alongside his Elf Unwrapped co-author Aaron Karo to chat about their new Elf oral history book, we asked Richter to weigh in on the status of the ongoing Season 35 competition. Richter, who noted that he’s “still working” for the show as the host of the Dancing with the Stars Official Podcast, said he anticipates some surprises.

“I think that the next two are gonna be — there might be a shocker,” he predicted. “There might be somebody that everybody just thinks is a shoo-in going into the Finals, who might go home next week. It’s really hard to tell because there’s so many good dancers and there’s so many people with really strong online followings, and they’re not always the same person. And you kind of gotta have the two to really be assured of sticking around and possibly winning. So I don’t know.”

Tonight’s episode marks Week 9 of the competition, as well as “Grammy Night,” during which the remaining partnerships — Amber Glenn and Pasha Pashkov, Tatyana Ali and Jan Ravnik, Ezra Frech and Daniella Karagach, Harry Shum Jr. and Jenna Johnson, Jenna Dewan and Val Chmerkovskiy, Connor Wood and Rylee Arnold, and Maura Higgins and Mark Ballas — will perform numbers to Grammy-winning and Grammy-nominated songs.

Richter, who lasted nine weeks on Season 34 of the ABC reality competition show with partner Emma Slater, added that as the Dancing with the Stars Official Podcast host, he gets to “talk to the people that get eliminated,” which he reflected is “not always a happy experience.” Although, he said it “was a happy one” when Jimmy Kimmel Live! star Guillermo Rodriguez and Witney Carson were cut after Week 5’s Super Bowl Night.

“That’s the only one that was happy,” he teased. “Guillermo’s like, ‘Yes, please!’ And Witney’s pregnant, so she just got to go home and be pregnant after being carted around the dance floor.”

As for whether we could see Karo in the ballroom competing on a future season of Dancing with the Stars, the Man of the Year podcast co-host said the odds are unlikely.

“I don’t think they want me, and I would never be able to hold a candle to Andy,” Karo said.

Richter cheekily replied, “Yeah, that’s true.”

In fact, Karo recalled when Richter was tapped to compete on Dancing with the Stars while they were working on Elf Unwrapped, which was released on Nov. 3.

“We were working on the book, and we did all the interviews, and we had a first draft, and we had one week away from delivering. And then Andy called me and said, ‘So I’m doing this reality show, it’s called Dancing with the Stars. But I’m going to be eliminated after a week, so don’t worry about it,’” Karo shared. “And then he just sent me that text every week for 10 weeks.”

Richter quipped, “America needed me, bitch!”

Have truer words ever been said?

New episodes of Dancing with the Stars air Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET on and Disney+, with next-day streaming available on Hulu.