Liddell primps but won’t dance

The "Dancing with the Stars" judges told UFC hero Chuck "The Iceman" Liddell to get in touch with his feminine side. They weren't kidding.

For his most recent dance, a makeup artist tried to "bedazzle" his head, but settled on merely placing a temporary tribal tattoo on him, he says.

"They were gonna make it all rhinestones -- on my head!" Liddell, chuckling, told me Thursday.

"I was like, 'Step away from my head. There are no rhinestones going on my head right now.' "

Liddell told the makeup artist he will do things for the show, but not if it doesn't make sense.

"I'm not gonna let you dress me up to make me look like a goofball just because you think it's funny," he told her.

"If it's got a purpose for it, fine, I'll do it. I'm a very competitive guy, so I'll suck it up to help with the scores.

"But I gotta have a reason."

His dancing outfits for the ABC show are about to get crazier, too.

"Wait till you see what I'm wearing this week," Liddell says.

His costume includes ruffles and something he can't remember the name of, but it "shakes around."

"If I understand the (costume) drawings they're making, they're gonna make me look like Big Bird!"

It does seem as if the show is moving Liddell closer to that girlier side, he says.

"I'm gonna be cross-dressing by the end of this thing," he jokes.

PEDICURES WITH HIS DAUGHTER

Speaking of girlier, Liddell already paints his toenails, as you can see by watching various YouTube videos.

This toenail thing started around 2005 when he was on vacation in Florida with a woman he was dating.

"Look, your feet are gross," she told him. "Get a pedicure with me."

He figured, why not? He was going to have to wait for her at the pedicure shop, anyway. And some of his "punk" buddies, who had been getting their toenails painted black for a while, had been trying to get him to follow suit.

So he got his little toenails painted black and his big ones painted pink, then he sent his buddies a photo for the laugh of it, but then as the days wore on, he forgot he had painted toenails.

"About a week later, I was at a (San Diego) Chargers game in flip flops. Everybody kept walking up to me, looking at me weird, and walking off. I'm like, 'What the hell is going on? What did I do?' " he says.

"About halfway through the game, I look down at my feet and go, 'No wonder people are tripping out. I've got black and pink toenails!' "

After that, he kept getting his toenails done because people's reactions seemed so funny to him.

These days, he gets his toenails painted with his 12-year-old daughter. She picks his mix of colors.

"We go get pedicures, and it's fun to do with her," he says. "We get black and pink a lot, together."

He has no plans to take nail polish to the next level:

"I've never made it to my fingers."

RETIREMENT?

As for Liddell's status in Dana White's UFC: Is he retired or what?

"I still haven't rested that issue with Dana yet. But we're gonna have a talk after the show. And I'm gonna take some time off, and talk to Dana and see what we can come up with."

White is asking UFC fans to support Liddell's work on "Dancing." Before the season started, White bet Liddell $10,000 he couldn't lose a big chunk of pounds before "Dancing" kicked in. Liddell trimmed way down, and won the bet.

What's Liddell planning to do with the money?

"I'm gonna wait until after I'm done with the show and go eat a bunch of food for about a week."

Contact Doug Elfman at 702-383-0391 or e-mail him at delfman@reviewjournal.com. He blogs at reviewjournal.com/elfman.