DWTS' Brooks Nader Says Gleb Savchenko 'Arranged' a Pole-Dancing Lesson to Help Her 'Feel Confident' (Exclusive)

Brooks Nader can't help but praise her Dancing with the Stars partner Gleb Savchenko.

At the Clarins Double Serum Generation 9 Launch Party on Saturday, Oct. 19, the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit cover model spoke with PEOPLE about her time on DWTS and her dancing partner Savchenko. 

Ahead of the Oct. 19 conversation, the pair were eliminated on the Oct. 15 episode of DWTS. Prior to that, romance rumors kicked off between the two when they shared a kiss during their rehearsal footage and then shared kisses backstage throughout the week 2 episode, PEOPLE confirmed.

“He’s just such an amazing person and human all around,” Nader exclusively told PEOPLE of the professional ballroom dancer, 41. “He really cares about people and he kept saying the whole time, ‘I just want to make you look really good and I want you to have the best experience with Dancing with the Stars.' ” 

“He was really focused on that the entire season, wanted to make me look hot, wanted to make me feel confident,” she explained. 

She then noted that Savchenko also “arranged that whole pole dancing lesson” for her, which she later performed on stage during Hair Metal Night on Oct. 3.

“Just to make sure I felt great and he just cared," she said of the lesson. "I feel like that’s rare these days and so I’m so appreciative to have had him as a partner. He’s an amazing guy."

Nader also told PEOPLE how “incredible” the entire DWTS journey was for her, despite getting eliminated.

“I’m so honored that I made it as far as I did and I got to end it on such a high note with my sisters in the dance with me and my whole family was there,” she said before adding that she had “mixed feelings [about the elimination], but everything happens for a reason.” 

The model also revealed she feels she “won in the end” because she "learned and grew so much throughout the process.”

The pair’s elimination came a week after they got matching tattoos together on Monday, Oct. 7, at Hollywood’s Nautilus Tattoo. There, they showed off some serious PDA as she got inked on her hip and he on his chest.

At the Oct. 19 Clarins event, although she confessed to PEOPLE that she’d never gotten a tattoo before this one, she did not reveal details of her "private" tattoo.

She also remarked that, at the time, her parents were visiting. "They saw some Page Six thing and were like ‘How was dinner, did you do something else?’ and I’m like, ‘No.’ And they go, ‘Really?’ And I said, ‘Well, I’m busted, but I’m an adult, so I can get a tattoo. It’s very tiny, very thin, and it’s my only tattoo.’”

She added that it’s likely the “end of [her] tattoo journey, but who knows? Anything could happen.”