Season 35 of Dancing With the Stars is still a few months away, but the slate of celebrities who are ready to hit the ballroom is starting to shape up.
The full list of stars and professional dancers who will appear in the next season of the competitive ballroom dancing show will be revealed on Good Morning America on Sept. 2. However, that hasn’t limited ABC from slowly announcing a few of the celebrities that will partake in DWTS‘ landmark 35th season.
To add to the excitement, the network will debut its companion show, Dancing With the Stars: The Next Pro, this summer, where a group of dancers will compete for a spot on the pro cast. In a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter, showrunner Conrad Green confirmed that the winner of The Next Pro “is secretly in the bank,” and shed light on what working on the new spinoff taught them about the mainstay show.
“[The Next Pro shows] just how many different skills you need to be a pro on Dancing With the Stars. Just being a good ballroom or Latin dancer is the basics,” he said. “But you have to be able to do group dancing, choreograph, manage difficult people, manage time pressure, format a dance and choreograph for a one-minute routine that’s got moments that might get picked up on social media that might make your couple pop.”
While the celebrity cast is still quite thin, executive producer and casting head Deena Katz has already assembled a starry pool of competitors.
From the woman who found herself in the middle of Bravo’s latest scandal to a sports star with a social media twist, here is the confirmed list of celebrities who will appear on season 35 of Dancing With the Stars.
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Ciara Miller
Image Credit: Kareem Black/Bravo Summer House star Ciara Miller was one of the first two celebrities announced as part of season 35 of DWTS. Her casting was announced at Hulu‘s Get Real House 2026, amid quite the busy time for the reality star who has been caught in the middle of Bravo’s latest scandal that stemmed from Amanda Batula and West Wilson’s relationship.
After a month of rumors and denying that their relationship had turned more than platonic, Batula and Wilson put out a joint statement in late March confirming their connection, sending the Bravosphere into shockwaves, specifically because Miller used to date Wilson, and she was also very close friends with Batula.
Katz told THR that tapping Miller to compete on DWTS “was a really of the moment” choice, and that she previously knew the reality star because she also cast her on season three of Traitors.
“I already knew Ciara. She was on Traitors, and she’s wonderful. She’s stunning, she’s gorgeous; she’s all these things,” Katz said. “And then the stuff that happened to her, it was a really of the moment thing that we all felt like it was the right time. We really wanted her on the show, but it was also the right time to announce her.”
The controversy has been compared to that of Vanderpump Rules‘ Scandoval, which encompassed Tom Sandoval having an affair with Rachel Leviss, his co-star and friend to his longtime girlfriend Ariana Madix. While the situations are different, Madix’s professional career hit a hot streak following the scandal (that hasn’t slowed down), which Miller herself is somewhat mirroring.
Madix went on to compete on DWTS and was subsequently named the host of Love Island USA following the Bravo scandal; Miller follows in her footsteps by now joining the cast of season 35, and she was also recently named the co-host of Love Island USA‘s Aftersun.
Before the Summer House star makes her way to the ballroom this fall, she has a jam-packed summer, which will include co-hosting Aftersun and seemingly returning to film season 11 of the Bravo series.
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Maura Higgins
Image Credit: John Nacion/Variety/Getty Images From Love Island to The Traitors, Maura Higgins is adding another mammoth reality television series to her resume this fall.
Higgins recently finished as second runner-up in the latter show, which turned into a viral moment of its own. She got her start in the unscripted world in 2019 when she appeared on the mainstay Love Island series based in the U.K., and subsequently traveled across the pond to host the American Aftersun show in 2024.
From there, she went on to compete in season four of The Traitors, which Katz cast for alongside DWTS. After her casting was announced, Katz told THR that Higgins was persistent in her pursuit of being considered for Dancing‘s fall season.
“[Maura] texts me every time she’s coming to L.A. She wants to have lunch. She’s been dying to do the show, and she’s fantastic. She’s great television,” she said. “[Maura] is exactly what our show is, and she’s having a moment right now, so that was a no brainer. And knowing what was going to happen with Traitors and seeing the buzz about her, she was fantastic.”
And as Katz noted, just after Traitors ended, Higgins told THR about her Dancing aspirations.
“It’s something that’d be a challenge for me. I’ve never danced. I’d done a bit of Irish dancing when I was younger,” she said. “It’d be a huge challenge, but I know I’d throw myself into it and all the looks and glitter.”
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Jackson Olson
Image Credit: Janet Taub, Planet Photo Savannah Bananas star Jackson Olson is trading baseballs for the ballroom! A member of the Georgia-based exhibition barnstorming team, Olson is a second baseman and content creator, with over 2 million followers on TikTok and 1 million on Instagram.
His casting taps into recent social media castings that was successful for DWTS season 34 with a sports mix, which has proven well on the show in previous years. Olson’s casting was revealed during the Disney Upfronts presentation on May 12.
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