Dancing With the Stars will eliminate one female celebrity pairing and one male celebrity pairing during its two-night season 35 premiere, with all the men competing on one night and all the women on the other. The news was revealed on the Sept. 10 episode of Hulu's Get Real podcast, ahead of the show's Sept. 15 and 16 premiere dates.
Elimination Twist Explained
Pro dancer Mark Ballas, partnered this season with The Traitors star Maura Higgins, said he was caught off guard by the twist. "I don't think I was even on the show when that happened," he said on the podcast. "It's not an even playing field, right? It's like the cast is split in half and someone's going. It's kind of like boys over there, girls over there, one of you is going from each group, right?"
"So that's, that's a little different," he added with a grimace.
Maura Higgins on Her Dance Background
This season's cast includes seasoned dancers such as Jenna Dewan and Harry Shum Jr., but Higgins said she would not put herself in that category, despite competing on Dancing on Ice in 2020, where she was eliminated in week 7. "For me, it wasn't dancing because I never skated," she explained. "So that was the hard part for me. It was just staying up on the ice."
Higgins said she also could not fully commit to that competition at the time. "It was like at a weird time in my life," she said, "because I had just come off my first ever reality show, Love Island, and I had like a million other things I was doing along with that show, right? So I couldn't really put my focus in it."
Casting Debate
Ballas defended the casting of contestants who come in with some performance experience, arguing the show is not meant to be judged like a professional competition. "This is not a legitimate dance competition, it's an entertainment show on television for families, right?" he said. "I also think that even though there is dancing on the show and you want to root, you want to see great dancing, it's also like about experience."
"So I feel like there's something for every fan," he continued. "Some fans want to see banger dances. Some fans want to see someone from ground zero make it. Some people want to see like someone with no experience improve every week. Some people with no experience won't improve every week, but you fall in love with the personality, right?"
He pointed to recent Mirrorball Trophy winners Joey Graziadei and Robert Irwin, both of whom entered the competition with no dance experience. "Just because someone danced in high school or they danced for an artist or something," he said, "that doesn't mean they can't take this on and improve every single week."
The Season 35 Pairings
The full celebrity-pro lineup for season 35 includes actress Julia Stiles with Ezra Sosa; chef Giada De Laurentiis with Alan Bersten; actor Harry Shum Jr. with Jenna Johnson; musician Taylor Hanson with Britt Stewart; actress Tatyana Ali with Jan Ravnik; actress and dancer Jenna Dewan with Val Chmerkovskiy; 2026 Olympic figure skater Amber Glenn with Pasha Pashkov; and Team USA Paralympic track and field athlete Ezra Frech with Daniella Karagach.
Also competing are Sarah Jane Nader, whose sister Brooks Nader danced on season 33, with Hailey Bills; comedian and social media personality Connor Wood, known as Fibula, with Rylee Arnold; Secret Lives of Mormon Wives star Conner Leavitt, whose wife Whitney Leavitt competed on season 34, with Adele Zaikman; Bachelor Nation's Tyler Cameron with Sharna Burgess; Savannah Bananas player Jackson Olson with Emma Slater; Jimmy Kimmel Live! personality Guillermo Rodriguez with Witney Carson; Summer House star Ciara Miller with Brandon Armstrong; and Higgins with Ballas.
Miller told E! News in June she was working on her stamina ahead of the season. "Looks are not indicative of being in shape," she said. "I do huff and puff going up the stairs, so I gotta get back into the gym and work on my stamina."
Higgins told E! News in May that a spot on the show had been part of her vision board for two years running. "I have a vision board and I redo it every year," she said. "This year is the first year that I stayed at home by myself on New Year's Eve. I did not go out at all. I made myself a bowl of pasta and a glass of red wine and I redid my vision board for the year. Dancing With the Stars was already on it from the year before. However, I added five more Dancing With the Stars on the board."
