Dancing With The Stars NZ: Coming face-to-face with Gilda Kirkpatrick after being called out by her on Twitter

I'd watched her tango, I'd written a snarky tweet about her facials, and now she was sitting next to me on the Newshub couch: Gilda Kirkpatrick, the first contestant eliminated from this year's Dancing With The Stars NZ

She was joined by her dance partner Shae, who disappointingly - but understandably - was no longer wearing the underpants emblazoned with Gilda's name. 

Did Gilda realise I was one of the hordes of commenters who had thrown a bit of shade in her direction under the #DWTS hash tag? I was freaking out. 

She had replied to my thoughts about her lack of facial expressions in her first dance, a tango, with an effortless clap-back: "Emmm tango is angry resting bitch-face #JustSayin". 

She might have been 'just sayin'', but what if she wasn't!? I couldn't afford to wait and see. 

"I have a confession!" I blurted out. I rambled my way through an admission of tweet-guilt, and tried and failed to turn it into a question about dealing with online feedback. 

"I had that comment from a lot of people, like 'why can't you smile?'" she said. 

"I was very happy with my facials... I'm definitely a tango girl, because I don't have to fake smile." 

I breathed a sigh of relief as I realised I had gotten off relatively un-scathed. 

She added a solemn reminder that there are real people at the receiving end of tweets, but at least she hadn't told me I "added nothing to society" like she did journalist Steve Braunias.  

Gilda did herself confess to participating in a bit of light online teasing, albeit in a private message with the other DWTS contestants. 

"We already have a Facebook group… where we all give each other shit." 

"Last night my message to everybody was 'hey, I went first, but remember there's only one winner… so the majority of you guys are gonna be losers!'" 

When she wasn't fending off my ridiculous Twitter-beef inquisition, she talked about her chosen charity, Starship Hospital. 

"It's about your ability to deliver, and not let your partner down and not let your charity down." 

Shae and I rallied together to assure her she hadn't disappointed anyone, and to ask her to please be my friend now so we could go walking with her cute dogs and gossip together.

 Although now I think of it, that last part might have been in my head. 

Viewers can help keep their favourite dancer in the competition by texting their first name to 3333 - each text costs 99c and net proceeds go to that star's chosen charity.

The next episode of DWTS NZ will air on Sunday at 7pm on Three and all episodes can be viewed again on ThreeNow.

Newshub.