Who are the front-runners? Guess who was a last-minute add? We have all the behind-the-ballroom details of Dancing with the Stars's new season.
10 Things You Need to Know About Dancing with the Stars Season 33
Updated Oct. 04, 2024
Let’s admit it: The concept of Dancing with the Stars still seems kind of nutty. A reality show that pits celebrities against one another in a live ballroom dancing competition? It’s not exactly backstabbing melodrama. In fact, the very first season back in the summer of 2005 featured only six people on the talent roster. (Hi, Joey McIntyre!)
But 19 years, 33 seasons and billions of sequins later, it remains one of the best reality TV shows out there and has a rabid fan base. (I can neither confirm nor deny that I once bolted from a date early to watch Jennifer Grey, star of my favorite ’80s movie, Dirty Dancing, do the tango.) Dancing with the Stars’s new season, featuring 13 contestants—including Olympic rugby player Ilona Maher, Beverly Hills 90210 star Tori Spelling and NBA champion Dwight Howard—debuted on Sept. 17 to 4.97 million viewers, per Nielsen, a 4% increase over last fall’s premiere.
Read on for the latest ins, outs and behind-the-scenes ballroom details with these 10 interesting facts about Season 33 of Dancing with the Stars.
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1. A Disney star and a basketball player are the early favorites
Those talented young Disney stars have a storied history with the show—Xochitl Gomez won last season. (I still say Sabrina Ryan was robbed back in the day!) It’s no surprise that Chandler Kinney, best known for her work as the werewolf Willa in the Zombies franchise, is the one to beat and racked up the highest score for Weeks 1 and 2. Judge Carrie Ann Inaba described her and Brandon Armstrong’s rumba to Billie Eilish’s “What Was I Made For” as “brilliant.”
NBA star Dwight Howard is also making a strong early case for the Len Goodman Mirrorball Trophy. After he and Daniella Karagach performed a foxtrot to “City of Stars” from La La Land, Inaba raved, “That was gorgeous.”
2. Stephen Nedoroscik is the first male gymnast to compete on the show
Yep, that’s right—there has never been a male gymnast on Dancing with the Stars before this season. That seems crazy, considering six female gymnasts have made viewers flip with their skills over the years, including Season 23 winner Laurie Hernandez (the show’s youngest winner ever at age 16) and Season 8 winner Shawn Johnson. Well, Stephen Nedoroscik is the perfect man to change that on Dancing with the Stars‘s new season. Known as the Clark Kent of the 2024 Summer Olympics thanks to his ability to take off his square-black glasses and perform super pommel horse routines, he won two bronze medals. That’s him, above, with his DWTS partner, Rylee Arnold.
And Nedoroscik, who’s an electrical engineer when he’s not doing the rumba, is ready for the challenge. “I’m feeling really good—I didn’t even know how to dance three weeks ago!” he said on the DWTS red carpet right after his first performance. “But it’s so much work. I use the same philosophy as gymnastics: learn how to learn.”
3. Jenn Tran was a last-minute addition
The star of the 2024 edition of The Bachelorette—left heartbroken after the finale—joined the lineup at the eleventh hour, which bumped up the cast roster to an unusual 13. “She literally walked out of that studio [on The Bachelorette aftershow] into a car, drove straight to Burbank and the next day was our title shoot,” said DWTS executive producer Conrad Green. “It was nuts!”
Green added that producers were happy to squeeze Tran in, since her as-seen-on-TV engagement to Devin Strader turned out to be so short-lived. “I think a lot of people are really rooting for Jenn and want to see her bounce back, see what she can do,” he said. “It’s been great at helping her get over the trauma of what she just went through.”
4. Eric Roberts’s participation is nearly 20 years in the making
Actor Eric Roberts—Emma Roberts’s father and Julia Roberts’s older brother—is finally strutting his moves after first being asked to join the show 19 years ago. At the time, he had to decline due to a scheduling conflict. So how did he feel after all that buildup? After his so-so first performance with Britt Stewart (to Bob Seger’s “Old Time Rock & Roll”) yielded a 15 out of 30, he admitted that he “screwed the whole thing up.”
But his fears have been quashed, he says: “I’m over the fear, I think, ’cause I was scared to death—not of the audience or the show, but of tens of millions of people watching me do what I used to criticize when I watched the show.”
5. Anna Delvey wanted to be billed as an ankle bracelet model
Though German faux heiress Anna Delvey was eliminated during the first round of cuts, she drummed up plenty of headlines during her short tenure. Billed in press releases and on the show as “a fashionista and entrepreneur,” the subject of the hit Netflix series Inventing Anna admitted in a Sept. 21 TikTok video (with partner Ezra Sosa) and that she originally wanted her title to be “Ankle Bracelet Model.”
If you don’t know the full story, here’s a quickie recap: In 2019, Delvey was convicted of grand larceny (for allegedly scamming wealthy investors) and sentenced to prison for 4 to 12 years. She was released in 2021 after serving nearly four years (her sentence was cut short as a result of the covid pandemic.) As part of a deal with Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE), she was allowed to relocate from New York to Los Angeles to do the show on the condition that she wear the electronic monitor.
She revealed in the premiere that she was required to wear the anklet in the first place because she “overstayed” her U.S. visa. Normally a black box, the monitor got an upgrade courtesy of the show’s costume department, which created a detachable sleeve encrusted with rainbow crystals. Alas, the bracelet made its final appearance after Delvey and Sosa did their quick-step.
6. Carrie Ann Inaba’s enthusiasm is the real deal
Fact: Carrie Ann Inaba and Bruno Tonioli—both successful choreographers and dancers in the pre-DWTS era—have bookended the judges table since the very first episode in 2005. And, judging by each episode, their enthusiasm has not even remotely diminished. A day after this season’s premiere, on Sept. 18, Inaba even wrote on her Instagram, “I predict … that this season is going to be my favorite season ever! Season 33 is off to a great start and I’m already obsessed with the season’s cast. They are all superstars if you ask me. We should call this season Dancing with the SuperStars!”
7. … and she didn’t mince words about Delvey’s attitude
Inaba was none too pleased that Delvey flatly answered, “Nothing,” when asked by co-host Julianne Hough what she learned from her time on the show. “That was dismissive not only of the opportunity she was given … but also of all of us who work on the show,” Inaba said in a post-show interview. “We all put in the effort to give her a fair opportunity. But I don’t think she could see that, and it’s a shame. A little gratitude could have changed the narrative.”
Inaba, who urged viewers to give Delvey a chance during the premiere, also noted that viewers vote for their favorites—not who they want voted off.
8. Reginald VelJohnson is the oldest contestant this season
Reginald VelJohnson may seem ageless, thanks to all those Family Matters reruns and endless rewatches of the classic 1988 action flick Die Hard. (He appeared in the sequel too!). But, at 72, VelJohnson is, ahem, the most senior contestant in Dancing with the Stars‘s new season. To wit: After he performed a salsa to “Motownphilly” and received scores of 6, 5 and 5 for a total of 16, he simply said, “I did it.” (And he did survive the first elimination!)
But he’s certainly not the oldest dancer in the show’s history: That honor goes to The Mary Tyler Moore Show actress Cloris Leachman, who was 82 when she competed in Season 7 in 2008.
9. Tori Spelling has no hard feelings about her early exit
OK, so Tori Spelling, who starred in one of the best ’90s TV shows of all time, was among the first celebrities to be voted off the show. But after her Sept. 25 elimination, the former Donna Martin vowed to continue dancing. “I’ve dipped my toes into something that’s been transformational for me personally, so I’m excited to keep going,” she said. “Obviously it won’t be in this ballroom weekly, but I’m not going to stop.”
In fact, Spelling confessed on the Sept. 6 episode of her misSPELLING podcast that she had always dreamed of competing but held off out of fear. “Every season I [watched] and was like, ‘Good for her [or] him, [but] oh God, I wish I was brave enough to do it,'” she recalled, sharing that she was “terrified” to take the stage.
10. There’s still no head judge
Len Goodman, a former professional ballroom dancer and British champion, held the title of head judge on DWTS for a whopping 31 seasons. He retired in 2022 and died in April 2023.—the prized Mirrorball Trophy was renamed in his honor. Last fall, Green announced that there were no plans to replace him on the judging panel; the same sentiment holds true for season 33. So who’s in his chair? The great Derek Hough, a DWTS judge since Season 29—who, of course, was previously a pro on the show for 17 seasons and won a record-breaking six times with his celebrity partners.
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At Reader’s Digest, we’re committed to producing high-quality content by writers with expertise and experience in their field in consultation with relevant, qualified experts. We rely on reputable primary sources, including government and professional organizations and academic institutions as well as our writers’ personal experience where appropriate. For this story on Dancing with the Stars‘s new season, Mara Reinstein tapped her two decades of experience as an entertainment journalist, film critic and pop culture expert. We verify all facts and data, back them with credible sourcing and revisit them over time to ensure they remain accurate and up to date. Read more about our team, our contributors and our editorial policies.
Sources:
- Deadline: “Dancing with the Stars Viewership Kicks Off with Solid Viewership for ABC”
- People: “All the Olympians Who Have Competed on Dancing With the Stars (And How They Did)”
- Variety: “Dancing with the Stars Boss Defends Anna Delvey Casting, Ponders Adding On Set Therapists”
- Us Weekly: “Anna Delvey Initially Wanted her Dancing with the Stars Title to Be ‘Ankle Bracelet Model'”
- People: “Anna Delvey Bedazzles Ankle Monitor to Match her Mini for Dancing with the Stars”
- Newsweek: “Eric Roberts Speaks Out After ‘Screwing Up’ DWTS Debut”
- Entertainment Weekly: “Dancing with the Stars judge Carrie Ann Inaba says Anna Delvey Was ‘Dismissive’ of What Show Had to Offer”
Originally Published: October 04, 2024
