Michelle Williams sits behind the permission question, but Tuesday’s Dancing With the Stars tribute kept its focus on Julia Stiles, Ezra Sosa, and Heath Ledger. The pair danced to “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You” on Dedication Night, then Stiles laid a flower on the ground after the performance.
The choice of song was the point. In 10 Things I Hate About You, Heath Ledger’s Patrick Verona sings “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You” to Kat Stratford during her soccer practice, and the ballroom performance folded that scene back into a live memorial on ABC.
Julia Stiles and Ezra Sosa
Julia Stiles and Ezra Sosa opened the tribute with a clear frame: this was not a celebrity remix of a famous scene, but a memorial built around a specific performance and a specific loss. Sosa wrote that they approached it with more care, sensitivity, and intention than any other performance, and that the piece was made with close guidance from those who hold Ledger and his memory closest.
“This isn’t about defining a relationship or telling a story that isn’t ours to tell,” Sosa wrote. “It’s about honoring a beautiful moment in time, a film that changed so many lives, and someone whose impact continues to be felt by generations.”
10 Things I Hate About You reunion
Several former cast members joined Stiles at the end of the dance, turning the tribute into a reunion instead of a solo memory. Andrew Keegan, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Larisa Oleynik, Gabrielle Union, and Susan May Pratt were part of the moment, which widened the performance beyond nostalgia and into a cast-wide acknowledgement of Ledger’s place in the film.
That reunion mattered because 10 Things I Hate About You, released in 1999 and directed by Gil Junger, still functions as the reference point for the tribute. The film’s setup centers on Joey trying to date Bianca while Patrick is paid to pursue Kat, and Ledger’s serenade became the sequence that Tuesday’s performance returned to in live form.
Heath Ledger Tribute on TV
Heath Ledger died in 2008 at the age of 28 from an accidental overdose, and Sosa said the performance was created with the utmost respect, thoughtfulness, and close guidance from those who knew him best. That makes the ballroom sequence more than a themed number: it is a rare example of a competition show using its live stage for a cast reunion built around remembrance, not promotion.
Michelle Williams also sits at the edge of the story because the headline’s permission question points to how the tribute was framed, not how it was performed. The source makes clear that the emotional and artistic terms were set by Stiles and Sosa on Dedication Night; the next unresolved piece is how that approval process was handled off camera.
