'DWTS' recap: One celeb is eliminated, another gets season's first perfect score

(ABC)

SPOILER ALERT: The following contains spoilers from last night's episode of "DWTS"

Nancy McKeon's "Dancing with the Stars" journey ended while Juan Pablo Di Pace grabbed the season's first perfect score on Monday night.

The theme was "most memorable year" and "The Facts of Life" star danced an emotional rumba dedicated to 2006, the year she and her husband, Mark, completed their family of two girls.

McKeon, teary-eyed, gave it all in the ballroom, but her score of 22 out of 30 wasn't enough to keep her and partner Val Chmerkovskiy from being eliminated.

Meanwhile, "Fuller House" hunk Di Pace received a perfect 30 score for a sexy samba with Cheryl Burke. After the show, he told reporters, "We hit the roof today. It feels amazing."

Di Pace remembered the year 1999 for "DWTS" cameras — a year when he says he was bullied after moving away from his native Buenos Aires.

"I was beaten up and spit on," he said.

Backstage, Di Pace explained to Fox News, "Children don't really know what they're doing and they can be really cruel," but he overcame the hurt to become an actor in America.

He led the scoring but was closely followed by four stars receiving scores of 27: "Harry Potter" actress Evanna Lynch, Disney star Milo Manheim, singer Tinashe, and football player DeMarcus Ware.

Manheim, being only 17, chose 2018 as his most memorable year as his career has taken off.

"What an overwhelming night. Emotions are just flying everywhere right now," he said backstage after getting raves for his jive.

The "Zombies" star, the son of "The Practice" star Camryn Manheim, was also nursing a leg injury backstage.

He split his hamstring and told reporters he was relying on ice, heat and Epsom salt baths. "I'm visiting a physical therapist every day," he shared.

Instagram sensation Alexis Ren and partner Alan Bersten brought to life the year her mother died of cancer through a contemporary dance. She wore her mom's wedding ring in remembrance.

Ren, who earned 26 points, told Fox News afterward that she most recalls her mom's "laugh and the way her hand felt. I remember being in the hospital rubbing her hand as my way to cope. She was the type of person who wouldn't laugh unless something was really funny [so] when that laugh came, it was a special moment."

Gymnast Mary Lou Retton surprised no one when she selected 1984 as her most memorable year.

That's when she famously won the Olympic gold medal and became America's sweetheart and a Wheaties box star.

But Retton dropped an on-camera shocker, telling viewers something she'd never revealed before: "Six weeks before I competed [in the Olympics] I had knee surgery."

Retton said she had been rushed to a hospital emergency room after her knee popped doing gymnastics and recalled "learning to walk again" just before the summer games in Los Angeles.

"I just wasn't going to give up," she sobbed on "DWTS."

Not only did she learn to walk again, but Retton took the gold.

After performing a Viennese waltz with partner Sasha Farber, garnering a score of 24, Retton dissolved in tears and told host Tom Bergeron how she had kept her surgery a closely guarded secret in 1984.

"We didn’t want the other competitors to know … it shows a sign of weakness," she recalled.

Also on the wrenching reveal night, radio host Bobby Bones told of his pride in graduating high school in 1998 after being born to a 15-year-old mother in a small Arkansas town. "She died in her 40s of drug and alcohol abuse," a sad Bones, who earned 23, told the cameras.

Retired athlete Ware disclosed on the show how he and his wife had lost three children due to pregnancy complications. To their joy, they were later able to adopt a daughter and have a biological son. The former Denver Bronco excited the crowd with a dramatic Argentine tango.

Among the other competitors, John Schneider scored 21 and "Bachelorette" star Joe Amabile got the lowest score at 18.

Schneider shared how he lost everything in 2016 after his home was flooded in Louisiana. His mother's home was also underwater, and she died that same year.

But Schneider's film producer girlfriend, Alicia Allain, gave him his smile back and he did a waltz to the song "Smile."