Actually, make that ‘was’. Because yesterday Toni Braxton became the latest celebrity to be voted off Dancing With The Stars after the American public deemed her West Coast Swing to be inexplicably worse than the sight of octogenarian contestant Cloris Leachman stumbling around like a Thriller zombie.

However, Toni Braxton took her Dancing With The Stars elimination with good grace, adding that all the constant training had helped to improve the heart condition that looked set to wreck her career a few months ago. The message is clear, everyone – dancing regularly can improve your health to a level that’s just below that of a frail 82-year-old woman. Good work, Toni.

Well this isn’t good. Even in its title, Dancing With The Stars promises celebrity – that or giant flaming balls of exploding gas, which hardly seems practical – but the stars seem to be deserting Dancing From The Stars at an exceptional rate.

First Kim Kardashian left Dancing With The Stars because she couldn’t adapt her one identifiable skill – starring in dreary internet sex tapes – onto the dancefloor. Then one of the few other recognisable names on the show, Olympic beach volleyball gold medallist Misty May-Treanor, snapped her leg in half or something and was forced to retire.

That left just one famous name on Dancing With The Stars – Toni Braxton. And she’s only famous because her song Unbreak My Heart is a perennial hit at pissed-up self-loathing middle-aged recent divorcee karaoke parties. But that doesn’t matter – all you need to know is that Toni Braxton was voted off Dancing With The Stars last night.

In all fairness, Toni Braxton was never supposed to last this long on Dancing With The Stars – her chronic heart complaint that caused her to cancel her Las Vegas residency was supposed to flare up in week two and make her keel over like David Carradine at the end of Kill Bill.

But in fact the opposite happened – clomping about on a stage for the amusement of a shrieking Italian midget week after week actually helped Toni Braxton’s recovery, as Access Hollywood reveals:

”[I’m] a little disappointed,” Toni said. Although she was sent on her way, Toni said she felt like she had a successful run. “My goal was reached,” the sexy singer said. “I can breathe better… and my heart is doing better, so my goal was definitely reached.”

See, that’s the problem with celebrities these days – they set their goals too high. Toni Braxton’s only goal was not to drop to the floor clutching her chest on live television, and she just about accomplished that. Everyone’s happy.

But still, now that Toni Braxton has been eliminated from Dancing With The Stars, it leaves producers with a branding problem. They can’t in all good judgement call the show Dancing With The Stars because there aren’t any famous people on it any more. So tune in next week, America, for the first episode of the brand-new show Dancing With The Least Famous One Out Of ‘N Sync And A Funny Old Lady Who Your Parents Think They Might Recognise.

In recent years, Dancing With The Stars contestants have included one-legged Heather Mills, constantly-fainting Marie Osmond and Mel B – a woman so harrowingly northern that there’ll soon be a all-star charity concert held to stop her eating tripe and breeding greyhounds.

And this year’s Dancing With The Stars is no different – contestants include 82-year-old Cloris Leachman, recent heart-scare patient Toni Braxton and Kim Kardashian, who suffers from a rare arse disorder called Booty Tumours. Or she doesn’t. Let’s not pretend that we care about any of this, shall we.

Of all the shows we’ve never watched because the thought of it makes us want to petrol-bomb an orphanage, our favourite has to be Dancing With The Stars. It’s basically a lot like Strictly Come Dancing, but without the scouse lady judge who looks like angry kebab meat. And it’s American, so it’s clearly better.

No really, it is. Who was on the last season of Strictly Come Dancing? That woman from Mis-Teeq and an infuriatingly smug ladyboy from EastEnders. Meanwhile Dancing With The Stars had Steve Guttenburg and apple-faced collapser Marie Osmond. Is it even possible to top a confusing bundle of ninnies like that? In short, no. Or yes. It pretty much depends on how much you like watching people who used to be in Dynasty clip-clop around dressed like poverty-stricken drag queens.

The contestants for the new season of Dancing With The Stars were revealed yesterday and, boy oh boy, are they ever, um, people. Here are the new Dancing With The Stars stars, in glorious alphabetical order:

Lance Bass – Lance is gay, so he obviously loves to dance. He was also in N’Sync, so he obviously loves to dance. He’s also failed to find any kind of successful solo project, so it’s either this or one of those other reality TV shows about masturbating farmyard animals. But, really, he does love to dance.

Toni Braxton – Toni Braxton recently had a heart scare, making her Dancing With The Stars Contestant Who Might Literally Drop Dead At Any Second Number One.

Brooke Burke – A woman who you get the feeling you should recognise, but have no idea why.

Rocco Dispirito – A man who you’ve never heard of, don’t care why and who only gets close to the term ’star’ because of his judderingly stupid name.

Maurice Green – Like Usain Bolt except he’s a) not as fast, b) not as famous and c) on a rubbish reality TV show instead of being an eternal Olympic hero.

Kim Kardashian – You’ve seen what she looks like when she has sex. You have. You have. Why are you acting like you haven’t? Don’t make us come over there and search your hard drive.

Cloris Leachman – As well as being the star of Young Frankenstein, Cloris Leachman is also 82 years old making her Dancing With The Stars Contestant Who Might Literally Drop Dead At Any Second Number Two.

Codey Linley – A Hannah Montana star who desn’t take semi-naked pictures of himself in the shower? Well we’ll be jiggered.

Susan Lucci – Apparently ‘the most famous face in daytime television history’, which must be true because she’s doing Dancing With The Stars with Rocco Dispirito. Rocco Dispirito!

Misty May-Treanor – She just won a gold medal for beach volleyball at the Olympics. Was that the height of her career? No way, because as prestigious as becoming an Olympic legend is, it doesn’t involve doing anything with anyone called Rocco Dispirito. Rocco Dispirito!

Ted McGinley – Some bloke.

Jeffrey Ross – Known as The Roastmaster General. Not because of his constant appearances on comedy roasts, but because once he ate 63 Yorkshire puddings in a 48-hour timespan. Gosh!

Warren Sapp - Dancing With The Stars Contestant Who Might Literally Drop Dead At Any Second Number Three because life is naught but a book that ends without warning. Also, we don’t know who Warren Sapp is.

But now Toni Braxton has finally got the attention she deserves. Thanks to the mysterious, potentially life-threatening chest pains that took her off to hospital last week, Toni Braxton has never been so famous and her Vegas show is bound to sell even more tickets than ever as a result.

Except that it won’t, because Toni Braxton has cancelled all of her shows for the rest of April while she recovers. Stupid chest pains – they give you all the thrill of being famous with none of the cardiovascular functionality of being healthy. Hardly ideal, is it?

We’re starting to think that we’re under attack from the early 1990s, what with Stone Temple Pilots reforming, Gladiators coming back to television, Vanilla Ice getting arrested for domestic battery and Toni Braxton going to hospital with chest pains. We’ll know for sure as soon as there’s a sighting of Macaulay Culkin swatting planes out of the sky from the top of a skyscraper, but by then it’ll be too late. Then the cast of Hangin’ With Mr Cooper will march into town and suicide will be the most painless option left open to us.

But anyway, hopelessly paranoid time-travel invasion fears aside, Toni Braxton has managed to make the news for the second time in just over a week – the most talked-about she’s possibly ever been.

Obviously the first instance came when Toni Braxton was admitted to a Las Vegas hospital with chest pains last week. Although no official statement has been made about the nature of Braxton’s illness, it’s thought that it could be a resurgence of the pericarditis that she was diagnosed with a few years ago.

And now that she’s out of hospital, Toni Braxton has made the decision to cancel all of her scheduled Toni Braxton: Revealed concerts at the Flamingo for the rest of the month. The Associated Press reports:

Toni Braxton won’t return to the stage on the Las Vegas Strip until at least next month. The Flamingo Las Vegas says Braxton’s show will remain dark this week while the 40-year-old Grammy winner has more medical tests following her April 7 hospitalization for chest pain. Flamingo President Don Marrandino said her Tuesday-through-Saturday shows are also off, and Braxton will take advantage of a previously scheduled two-week break. She is due to resume her show at the Flamingo Showroom on May 6. The Flamingo is offering refunds for the canceled shows.

It’s just common sense that Toni Braxton should cancel the rest of the month’s concerts, for everyone’s sake. Needless to say, Toni Braxton will find it hard to perform to her utmost level while she’s worrying about such a potentially dangerous heart condition, but her audience would probably appreciate it if she didn’t drop dead straining for a high C in the middle of a show as well. It’d take the shine right off their trip, for starters.

But with Celine Dion out of Vegas and Toni Braxton incapacitated by illness, who’s left for the good people of Las Vegas to go and see during their visit? Four words – Lucky Cheng’s Drag Cabaret!

Read more:

Toni Braxton’s Shows for April Canceled - AP

Although the exact nature of Toni Braxton's illness hasn't been revealed, some have claimed that she was rushed to hospital with chest pains – a sign that Toni Braxton could be suffering from a flare up of her pre-existing pericarditis.

Pericarditis, of course, is an inflammation of the lining of the heart. Ironic, really, since Toni Braxton's most famous song was entitled Un-Break My Heart. When will these celebrities realise that singing lovelorn powerballads about diseases that they suffer from is no substitute for the progressive nature of medical science?

Toni Braxton has never been too much of a hecklerspray target in the past, but that's only because she's failed to do anything of worth. But now, thanks to a horrific-sounding health scare that possibly left her fearing for her life, she's made it. Welcome to the big time, Toni! 

Although Toni Braxton hasn't had a real hit since the middle of the last decade, she's kept herself fairly busy – alternating shifts in Las Vegas working crowds with her I Know You Couldn't Get Tickets For Celine Dion But I'm Almost As Good (Plus There's Free Soup) show with being diagnosed with horrible illnesses that inflame the lining of her heart.

And on Monday night, those two things collided spectacularly, leaving Toni Braxton in a Las Vegas hospital receiving urgent medical care for chest pains, as E! Online reports:

Toni Braxton is on the mend and in "good condition" following a health scare. The 40-year-old "Un-Break My Heart" singer was admitted to Las Vegas' St. Rose Dominican Hospital for chest pains Monday night… The singer's agent at ICM, Mark Seigel, would not comment on Braxton's hospitalization. While there hasn't been any further details released on her present ailment, Braxton has previously admitted suffering from a condition called pericarditis, an inflammation of the lining of the heart, which she was diagnosed with four years ago.

It sounds horrible, and hopefully Toni Braxton will make a full and speedy recovery from this scare. But, again, it's odd that the singer of Un-Break My Heart should suffer from a cardiac anomaly like this. Let's just hope that fate doesn't decide to act out any more of Toni Braxton's song titles, like Trippin', Breathe Again or Let It Flow – Toni's been through enough without suffering a fractured collar bone, chronic asphyxia or abnormally heavy periods.

However, just as we hope that Toni Braxton gets better quickly, we'd also like to make it clear that we don't want Toni Braxton to become any more famous from this incident.

It's for our own good – because if Toni Braxton manages to resurrect her singing career by performing songs about her illnesses, then the floodgates will  open. And the day that Jessica Simpson releases a song called Let Me Tell Y'All About My Stinky Piss is the day that we realise evil has won.

Read more:

Toni Braxton Hospitalized - E! Online