Jason Mraz Begged Friends to Stop Voting For Him on ‘Dancing With the Stars’ Because He Missed His Cat

Jason Mraz is a cat fancier. Like, a seriously devoted feline dad. The singer described just how much he loves his kitty during an appearance this week on actor Jesse Tyler Ferguson’s Dinner’s On Me podcast, when he revealed that he purposely tried to tank his nearly championship run on the 32nd season of Dancing With the Stars so he could get back home to his fur baby.

“Two or three weeks in, I realized I’m probably going to be here the whole time, and I’m terrified, and I have to cancel all my plans for the entire rest of the year, and I’m missing my cat terribly,” he said of his epic run on the show last year, in which he hit the runner-up spot and just missed out on the trophy after landing behind Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness star Xochitl Gomez. “I start telling my friends, ‘Stop voting for me!’”

The only problem, as it turned out, was that the “I’m Yours” singer has considerable hoofing skills, so he and dance partner Daniella Karagch almost made it to the winner’s circle, even after informing producers at one point “I’m good” and telling them he was ready to leave. “Having made it all the way to the very end, made it to the buzzer, I look back and laugh and think, ‘Well, maybe if I’d actually given a s–t!’” he said. “So, I would do it all over again if I could, and I would try really hard.”

Elsewhere in the chat recorded at Mel’s Drive-In in West Hollywood with the former Modern Family star, Mraz, 48, talked about his decision to come out as bisexual later in life due to fear of how the news might be received. “In the ’90s, being gay was like [the] punchline of a joke. And I didn’t want to be the punchline of a joke,” Mraz said of growing up in conservative Mechanicsville, Va, where he said he was bullied as a teen and didn’t have many sexual experiences. “I still took with me the conservative street that I grew up on, and that was very hard to ignore or to break out of. I was very shy and and scared of what my family would say, or what my hometown would think or just whatever.”

So, as a teenager, Mraz said he just tried to keep “my nose down” and searched for a way out of town so he could see the wider world. Mraz first discussed his sexuality in a 2018 Billboard interview, in which the twice-divorced Grammy-winner described having experiences with men even while dating his ex-wife Christina Carano; the pair married in 2015 and divorced in June 2023. And though Mraz said he can’t say he’s finally found love yet, he described “amazing relationships” that have helped him grow and learn a lot about himself and life.

“I love where I am and I feel so much love for myself finally, that can only enhance the next relationship,” he told Ferguson, admitting to still feeling like a “late-bloomer.”

Listen to the full podcast below (discussion about coming out is at the 19-minute mark and the cat tale begins around the 37-minute point).