Dancing With the Stars Season 35: First Celebrities Revealed

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Two Faithfuls are heading to the ballroom.

Maura Higgins and Ciara Miller, known from the show Traitors, are the first contestants announced for season 35 of Dancing With the Stars. They revealed the news on April 22nd at Hulu’s Get Real House Live event.

At the event, Julianne Hough told Maura that she had attracted this positive outcome into her life. Maura agreed, explaining she’s a firm believer in the power of manifesting and had actually visualized this happening on her vision board. She was thrilled it was coming true, even though she knew it would be challenging, and she was fully committed to making it work.

Maura noted that her Traitors costar and DWTS pro Mark Ballas told her it would be “tough.”

Okay, so she admitted she’s a terrible dancer – two left feet, honestly! But she’s so cute about it, saying the guys she’s dancing with are really going to have to work hard to keep up with her. I just know it’s going to be hilarious and adorable, and I’m already obsessed with the thought of them trying to guide her! It’s perfect!

Ciara is thrilled to be competing for the Mirrorball Trophy this fall and shared her excitement in a video message.

I came back to New York to take care of some things, but I’m thrilled to be joining season 35 of Dancing With the Stars! It feels like the right time for a fresh start, and I’m excited to share this new chapter with everyone. I’m really looking forward to bringing my energy to the dance floor.

She added, “And Maura, I can’t wait to share the dance floor with my fellow Faithful.”

The show’s finale last season saw a record 72 million votes, ultimately crowning wildlife expert Robert Irwin and his partner Witney Carson as the winners. Robert followed in his sister Bindi Irwin’s footsteps – she won the competition in 2015. He competed against Alix Earle, Jordan Chiles, Dylan Efron, and Elaine Hendrix to take home the prize.

Robert gave it his all while dancing, even injuring a rib before his final performance. He brushed it off, saying, “You have to push through the pain to achieve something great.”

After winning last November, he praised his partner Witney for adapting their final dance routine to work around his injury. He told Good Morning America that Witney was incredible at making changes on the spot, and that their freestyle dance was a way to show gratitude to everyone who had supported them throughout the competition.

Even though Robert is no longer competing on Dancing With the Stars, he’s still involved with the show. He’ll be hosting the new series, Dancing With the Stars: The Next Pro, while Mark Ballas and his mother, Shirley Ballas, will be judges.

I’m so excited for this new show coming to ABC and Hulu this summer! It’s a competition where dancers are vying for a chance to become professional dancers on Dancing With the Stars. Basically, season 35 isn’t just going to have new celebrities – we’re getting a whole new group of pros too, and I can’t wait to see who makes the cut!

Oh my gosh, after he won, he told Good Morning America about Witney, and it was just so sweet! He said Witney was incredible, totally adapting their final dance because of his injury. They had to change things right then and there during the performance, but he said that freestyle was his way of showing gratitude to everyone who supported them throughout the whole competition. It was just…perfect. She really saved the day and helped him pull off that amazing final performance!

Even though Robert is no longer competing on Dancing With the Stars, he’s still involved with the show. He’ll be hosting the new series Dancing With the Stars: The Next Pro, and Mark Ballas, along with his mother Shirley Ballas, will be judges.

As a lifestyle expert, I’m so excited about this new series coming to ABC and Hulu this summer! It’s a competition where dancers are vying for a chance to become professional dancers on Dancing With the Stars. That’s right – we’ll be seeing some fresh talent alongside our favorite celebrities in season 35. It’s going to shake things up and bring a whole new energy to the show!

Ahead of the cast reveal, Maura admitted it would be a daunting experience she’d look forward to. 

She admitted to The Hollywood Reporter in a March 4th interview that it would be a difficult undertaking. ‘I’ve never really danced,’ she said, adding that she did a little Irish dancing as a child. ‘It would be a big challenge, but I’d fully commit to it – the costumes, the sparkle, everything!’

While we continue to announce the cast for season 35, here’s a sneak peek behind the scenes of the show.

In 2019, Variety reported that celebrities appearing on Dancing With the Stars initially make $125,000 for rehearsals and the first two weeks of the show. According to sources, contestants who continue past that point earn additional money each week, potentially reaching a maximum of $295,000.

However, Bobby Bones said he made more than this when he won season 27 with Sharna Burgess in 2018.

The radio host revealed on Jason Tartick’s podcast, Trading Secrets, in September 2025 that the show’s pay structure is unusual. They explained they weren’t paid for the first episode, earned $10,000 for the second, and then the pay increased to around $10,000, $10,000, $20,000, and $20,000 per episode. Ultimately, they said you could earn $50,000 an episode if you remained on the show.

In addition to a salary of about $110,000, Bones revealed he earned nearly $400,000 from the show.

ABC has not publicly confirmed any of these figures.

Details about professional dancers’ earnings haven’t been released, but like the contestants, it appears they earn more the further they advance in the competition.

But even if a pro is eliminated in the first round, they’re not leaving the ballroom empty-handed.

Jenna Johnson explained on the June 2025 episode of the The Morning After podcast, hosted by Kelly Stafford and Hank Winchester, that dancers are typically guaranteed work for a specific number of weeks. However, she added that contracts vary and she couldn’t comment on everyone’s situation.

Apparently not.

Cheryl Johnson, who has won two seasons of Dancing with the Stars – once with Olympic skater Adam Rippon and again with Joey Graziadei from The Bachelor – explains that professional dancers don’t earn extra money for winning the show’s coveted Mirrorball Trophy, now named after the late Len Goodman. However, she points out there are still benefits to reaching the finale, beyond just the prestige of winning.

She explained on The Morning After that reaching the finale means getting paid for the entire season, plus a bonus. However, winning isn’t about a large cash prize – it’s just a shared trophy for the winning couple.

That doesn’t appear to be the case.

As a lifestyle expert, I often hear about the financial realities of performance careers, and it can be really tough. I remember Lindsay Arnold sharing on the Trading Secrets show that her pay was drastically reduced – she said it was cut by more than half – when she transitioned from being a professional dancer to a troupe member. It just highlights how much your role can impact your income, even within the same industry.

The pros get little input when it comes to being matched with a celebrity.

On the May 2025 episode of Maggie Sellers’ podcast, Hot Smart Rich, Lindsay explained that participants had no choice in who they were paired with. She described it as simply being told, ‘Here’s your partner. Now try to make the relationship work.’

In fact, Jenna said the pairing is often a secret until the last minute.

Jenna explained on The Morning After that the show’s producers intentionally keep the cast a secret until the live reveal. People often assume the hosts know who’s participating, but that’s not true – the producers don’t even tell them. They want genuine reactions from everyone involved, so they work hard to prevent leaks and maintain the surprise until contestants meet their partners.

As for what the Dancing With the Stars team looks for when making these matches?

According to former showrunner Rob Wade, the show’s pairings weren’t random. In a 2015 interview with TopMob News, he explained they considered height, body type, personality, and how well contestants would get along. They avoided matching people who they thought wouldn’t connect, as the experience was already very demanding. Unlike shows like The Bachelor, forcing a bad match would create a negative experience for everyone involved – the celebrity, the production team, and the audience. He admitted they’d made that mistake in the past, pairing people who simply didn’t click.

Dancing With the Stars requires a huge time commitment. Rylee Arnold, who danced with Stephen Nedoroscik in season 33, explained on the Lightweights Podcast With Joe Vulpis that rehearsals typically last four hours, either from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., 1 p.m. to 5 p.m., or 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. But the work doesn’t end there – she often spends additional time meeting with producers, working on choreography, or studying dance routines. Rylee says it takes over her entire life, but she loves it and is passionate about her work. The schedule is demanding, with rehearsals happening Tuesday through Sunday after show days, and camera blocking on Mondays before starting the cycle again.

Emma Slater and Britt Stewart shared in an Instagram video in September 2025 that they were mostly on board with something, but it involved working with the show’s producers.

If you think the quickstep dance is fast-paced, you should see how quickly the costume department works! Costume designer Daniela Gschwendtner explained to TV Insider that they collaborate with set, lighting, and dance teams to create a unique story for each dancer’s outfit. Then, they have just five days – often only half a day per costume, before adding rhinestones – to make everything. The department employs around 20 people, plus a separate tailor shop, making it a large operation.

Steven Norman Lee, another costume designer, revealed that dancers often don’t try on their costumes until just hours before the show. While they might occasionally reuse pants for the male dancers, most costumes are made from scratch each week.

As Gschwendtner added, they do reuse items for group performances or promotional shoots, but never for the competition itself. The goal is to keep each dancer looking fresh and new every week to maintain the show’s excitement.

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2026-04-23 03:52