Disney+ and ABC’s fan favorite reality competition show, Dancing With The Stars, is back for season 34! Here’s where you might know the cast of celebrities and their professional partners from.
Cast of DTWS Season 34
- Robert Irwin and Witney Carson
- Alix Earle and Val Chmerkovskiy
- Jen Affleck and Jan Ravnik.
- Hilaria Baldwin and Gleb Savchenko
- Jordan Chiles and Ezra Sosa
- Baron Davis and Britt Stewart
- Dylan Efron and Daniella Karagach
- Corey Feldman and Jenna Johnson
- Danielle Fishel and Pasha Pashkov
- Elaine Hendrix and Alan Bergen
- Scott Hoying and Rylee Arnold
- Whitney Leavitt and Mark Ballas
- Andy Richter and Emma Slater
- Lauren Jauregui and Brandon Armstrong
Robert Irwin
Robert Irwin is known for being the son of the late Steve Irwin. Steve Irwin was an Australian zookeeper, wildlife conservationist, and television star in the hit show Crocodile Hunter.
Since Steve Irwin’s unfortunate passing in 2006, Robert has continued his father’s legacy. Steve Irwin tended to lean towards reptiles and scaled creatures. Robert Irwin, on the other hand, is a big fan of soft, cuddly Australian animals like koalas and dingos.
Robert is a television personality and has made appearances on shows like Crikey! It’s the Irwins, I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here!, Wild But True, and Bindi the Jungle Girl. But on top of that, he is also a wildlife conservationist like his father.
Internationally, people really love the Irwin family. Robert’s older sister, Bindi, followed in her father’s footsteps as well and is currently the CEO of Australia Zoo. In 2015, Bindi also competed in the reality competition show DWTS Season 21. Alongside partner Derek Hough, Bindi won the mirrorball trophy and was crowned the winner of the season.
When Access Hollywood asked about following Bindi’s dancing career, Robert said,
“It’s just been amazing to have my family support, like they have come all the way from Australia, moved out here to support me, and they’re just always my biggest inspiration… And I’ve got my sister in there to give me all the advice.”
Robert is dancing with long-term DWTS professional Witney Carson, who started in the ensemble troupe of the show in Season 16. DWTS promoted her to a “pro” in Season 18. Then, Carson won her second season as a pro with Alfonso Ribeiro, who is now one of the hosts of DWTS.
Alix Earle
Alix Earle is a 24-year-old internet personality who got her start as a University of Miami party girl on TikTok in 2022.
Her most popular videos on social media include “Get Ready With Me” to go out to bars and parties in Miami, vacation vlogs, and TikToks with her athlete boyfriend, Braxton Berrios of the NFL’s Houstan Texans.
Since her graduation in the spring of 2023, Earle has used her platform to show her post-grad life, her advocacy for animal fostering, and has started an academic scholarship for business students at her alma mater, among other things.
Earle’s following has just continued to grow as she now has over seven million TikTok followers and a Spotify podcast titled Hot Mess.
The internet star was a competitive dancer throughout childhood, but hasn’t had any real professional training, let alone any in ballroom dancing. Her professional partner, Val Chmerkovskiy, has won three seasons of the show with celebrity partners Rumer Willis, Laurie Hernandez, and most recently, Xochitl Gomez in Season 32.
So, Earle has a great partner to start her ballroom dancing training with. In regard to her partnership, Earle told ExtraTV,
“He’s been amazing and he’s very patient with me, and he’s so much fun.”
Jen Affleck
Jen Affleck is a social media influencer most known for being on Hulu’s reality show The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives.
Originally, Affleck got her start on “MomTok,” a side of TikTok where mothers show their daily lives with their children. Affleck tends to post advice for other moms and funny past experiences with her family.
She has three children with her husband, Zac. Affleck pleasantly surprised her fans when she was announced to be on the DWTS cast because she had just had her last child in July 2025. Another big contributor to Affleck’s rise to fame is her connection to Ben Affleck through her husband, who claims to be related to the actor.
Now, Affleck is one of eight women from Utah who star in Secret Lives of Mormon Wives. Viewers get to see how these women interact with their family, friends, and social media.
She met her husband in 2018 on a Mormon dating app and married him that same year. Affleck announced that she and her husband were separated during the filming of season 2 of The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives. They have since reconciled, and he has even been in social media videos with Affleck in the DWTS studio.
Affleck is dancing with Jan Ravnik, who is the newest addition to the cast of professional partners on DWTS. Ravnik is straight off the dance crew from Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour, where he toured with her for almost two years. Because of this, a lot of Affleck’s DWTS content on her social media has been about Taylor Swift.
In a TikTok post, Affleck says,
“When Jan wants to dance but Taylor just got engaged AND has a new album coming out”
Hilaria Baldwin
Hilaria Baldwin married award-winning actor Alec Baldwin when Hilaria was 28 and Alec was 54 in 2012.
This marriage caused quite the controversy because of their age gap. However, in the 8 episode reality series The Baldwins, fans get a glimpse into their domestic life with seven kids and are able to see just how much the age gap doesn’t affect their lives.
Outside of her life with Alec Baldwin, Hilaria is a published author, entrepreneur, and yoga instructor. She even started a chain of yoga studios in New York called “Yoga Vida.”
The Baldwins’ age gap marriage isn’t where the controversies of her life end, though. She claims to be from Spain and says she grew up there with her parents, that she speaks fluently in both English and Spanish, and to this day, still has a fairly thick Spanish accent.
All of these claims have turned out to be not quite accurate though, as Hilaria Baldwin from Spain was actually born as Hillary Hayward-Thomas in Boston, Massachusetts. Hilaria’s critics accuse her of misleading them and being culturally inappropriate, and she has since taken to social media to apologize and explain herself.
Baldwin also comes with controversies in regards to DWTS. She competed as a part of New York University’s amateur ballroom dance team and was a Latin ballroom dancer in her teenage years. Some longtime DWTS fans feel that this background gives her an unfair advantage to the competition that some of her competitors may not have.
Baldwin’s celebrity partner is Gleb Savchenko. Fans have watched Savchenko on DWTS for a total of 12 seasons, but it was rumoured that he wasn’t originally asked to be back this season.
That being said, they are looking forward to seeing this, possibly controversial, pair on their screens!
Jordan Chiles
Jordan Chiles is a 24-year-old American gymnast. She has competed with the American team twice: once in the Summer Olympics in Tokyo in 2020 and recently in the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris.
In 2024, Chiles competed on the floor, the uneven bars, and the vault. She originally earned a bronze medal for her individual performance, and the American team won the gold. Chiles winning her bronze was a historic moment on the Olympic stage because it was the first time that three women of color stood among each other on the podium. However, Olympic officials stripped her of her award and gave it to a Romanian competitor. An arbitration court claimed that the inquiry that put Chiles in third place was filed just seconds too late.
Chiles has more than 800,000 followers on TikTok and 1.5 million followers on Instagram. Both of these accounts showcase Jordan’s sassy personality and attitude, which make her the perfect celebrity partner for professional ballroom dancer Ezra Sosa.
Sosa started his DWTS career on the ensemble troupe in 2021 and had his first season as a “pro” last year in Season 33. He turned heads from the beginning as the first openly gay professional dancer competing in the ballroom at the time. On top of that, his celebrity partner was Anna Delvy, the international con artist.
Sosa and Delvy got eliminated early in the season, giving Sosa lots of time to grow his social media following and bring a new generation of fans into DWTS.
Fans seem excited to see Sosa with a fun partner who matches his energy and hope to see the pair go far.
Baron Davis
Baron Davis is a former American basketball player who played for 14 years, starting in 1988. In his career as a point guard, Davis played for the Charlotte Hornets, the New Orleans Hornets, the Golden State Warriors, the Los Angeles Clippers, the Cleveland Cavaliers, and the New York Knicks. He also played college basketball for UCLA.
Being a long-time sports fan, specifically a long-time fan of the Los Angeles Raiders, Davis is the host of Raiders: Talk of the Nation. As host of this show, Davis sits down for 30-minute episodes to talk about the football team, their community, converse with celebrities, and more. Davis is also the permanent co-host of The Draymond Green Show with Baron Davis, an NBA podcast.
The former NBA player is dancing with Britt Stewart for DWTS. Stewart has been a professional dancer on the show since 2016, but became a “pro” partner in 2020. This makes her the first African-American woman to be a “pro” in DWTS history.
Dylan Efron
Dylan Efron has very quickly become the “Efron” the internet didn’t know it needed!
He originally gained popularity by being the heartthrob younger brother of famous actor Zac Efron when he competed in the reality show The Traitors in season 3. He competed alongside reality superstars like Britney Haynes (Big Brother), Tom Sandoval (Vanderpump Rules), Gabby Windey (Bachelor franchise), and more.
Efron was a very successful competitor on this show. He played with a level head, was able to sniff out the “traitors,” made life-long friendships, and even won the game in the end.
Efron and his fellow winners of The Traitors Season 3 won $204,300 each. This was the first season that four “faithfuls” of a season were able to win the prize money. Many fans of the show claim that Efron played a big part in this win because he was able to call out Bob the Drag Queen (RuPaul’s Drag Race) as being a “traitor” early in the season.
Since his season ended and his social media following has grown, Efron’s online presence has been nothing short of hilarious, especially in the last few weeks during the promotion of DWTS.
Efron’s partner on Season 34 of DWTS is Daniella Karagach. Karagach is one of the fan favorite professionals on the competition dance show. Typically, Karagach dances with tall and muscular athletes like Dwight Howard, who is 6’10. This has proven to be quite difficult as Karagach herself is only 5’7.
Fans and viewers of the show loved Karagach’s pairing with her partner is Season 32, Jason Mraz. They can already see a lot of similarities between Mraz and Efron and are excited to see how the pair fares in comparison.
Corey Feldman
Corey Feldman is an American actor most known for his movies in the 1980s. A big name in 1980s television and movies, he starred in some of the biggest hits of the decade as a child.
Because of the hardships Feldman faced as a child actor in the industry, he is now an advocate for child actors. He has spoken about his own harmful experiences and does his best to expose sexual misconduct and abuse. He even starred in the documentary My Truth: The Rape of 2 Coreys, where he called out several names in Hollywood.
Most famously, Feldman was in Gremlins (1984), The Goonies (1985), and Stand by Me (1986).
Feldman’s “pro” partner, Jenna Johnson, posted a TikTok video with him, and the caption stated,
“Help us choose our team name… ‘TeamNeverSayDie’ !!!!!”
Johnson is a very talented professional dancer and even won the most recent season of DWTS with her partner Joey Grazadei of the Bachelor franchise.
Feldman had prior commitments at the beginning of the practice for his season, so he and Johnson had a late start to their rehearsals. But, Johnson has come out to explain just how hard a worker Feldman is and that they are definitely making up for lost time!
Danielle Fishel
Danielle Fishel is best known for playing Topanga on Boy Meets World.
Boy Meets World originally premiered in 1993 and became a big hit. Topanga and Corey, played by Ben Savage, are one of the ultimate ’90s couples. They went from friends to lovers, they fought and made up, got engaged, and of course, ended up together over the course of the seven seasons the show aired.
In fact, the popularity of Boy Meets World and its beloved characters inspired a spin-off show. Girl Meets World was created following Cory and Topanga’s daughter, Riley. Of course, a big part of Riley’s journey was led by her parents, making Fishel’s role crucial to the creation and plot of the show.
Fishel’s professional partner on DWTS is Pasha Pashkov, who has been working on the show for about six years. They have been keeping up to date on fun social media trends while promoting the upcoming season of DWTS. Boy Meets World lovers can’t wait to see her take the stage.
Elaine Hendrix
Elaine Hendrix is an American actress best known for her work in The Parent Trap.
Hendrix played a very memorable character in the The Parent Trap 1988 remake with Lindsey Lohan. Two twins, separated at birth, meet again as young teens by a twist of fate. But their father is dating a horrible, mean, stuck-up new girlfriend. Meet Hendrix’s character, Meredith Blake.
Hendrix’s character gained popularity again in the past few years for a totally different reason. Viewers of the movie now celebrate her style, ambition, and independence. Hendrix has even come out and supported these ideas herself.
Apart from her most well-known role as Meredith Blake, Hendrix was in the 2017 remake of Dynasty, Romy and Michelle’s High School Reunion, and more. She was most recently in Freakier Friday, once again sharing the screen with her former co-star Lindsay Lohan.
Although Hendrix is known as an actor, she is currently a proud activist devoting her platform to animal rights, and she also won the HRC Ally for Equity Award in 2022.
This season, Hendrix is dancing with Alan Bergen. Last year, Bergen was paired with Ilona Maher. They promoted body positivity during their time on the season and made it to the finale episode.
His goofy personality and beautiful choreography gather many fans throughout seasons on DWTS. Fans seem to think that Hendrix and Bergen are pretty well matched!
Scott Hoying
Scott Hoying is an American singer/songwriter and is one of the founders of the a capella group Pentatonix.
Hoying actually isn’t an amateur at competition reality shows, as Pentatonix competed in and won Season 3 of NBC’s The Sing-Off, a competition a cappella show. Since then, the group has released 11 studio albums, but isn’t limited to those releases.
Hoying is paired with Rylee Arnold, one of the newest professionals on DWTS. Arnold started her DWTS career on Dancing With The Stars: Juniors in 2018 and comes from a line of dance professionals. Her sister, Lindsay Arnold, was a dancer on DWTS as a “pro” and as an ensemble troupe dancer from 2013 to 2021. All of her other sisters have dance backgrounds as well.
Hoying is Arnold’s third partner. In Season 33, Arnold and her partner made it to the finale episode, and she choreographed one of the most popular finale dances of DWTS ever.
Social media is blowing up Hoying and Arnold’s partnership as they seem to have become good friends almost immediately.
When PEOPLE asked about his DWTS partnership, Hoying said,
“Rylee’s the perfect partner and I’m obsessed with her already. She’s such a superstar. She just has so much star power.”
Whitney Leavitt
Whitney Leavitt is another social media influencer who is most well known for her work on The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives.
Leavitt, much like co-star Jen Affleck, gained popularity on social media on “MomTok” on TikTok. She and her husband have three children together, and their relationship is one of the main relationships shown on the Hulu show.
Leavitt and her husband, Conner, have tried to be very forthcoming about their marriage and family struggles since the spotlight has been on them in the show. Conner was found on the dating app Tinder while he was married to Whitney Leavitt.
In 2021, their son was born with RSV. As she has always been, Leavitt tried to be transparent in her familial struggles and went to TikTok to tell her fans that her son was sick with RSV in the NICU. However, the video she posted seemed insensitive to fans, and they speculated that she was only doing it to gain more support and “clout” on social media.
The video that Leavitt posted was of her dancing to Kendrick Lamar’s song “Love” right next to Liam’s bassinet, as he is clearly on oxygen support, with text above detailing her infant’s illness.
While the video didn’t go over well, Leavitt came out apologizing and explaining her intentions. Now, Leavitt is an aspiring actress and recently appeared in the film The League of Warriors.
Leavitt’s partner for DWTS is famed ballroom dancer Mark Ballas.
Ballas has one of the longest runs as a professional with DWTS and has won the mirrorball trophy three times in his time on the show. He retired after Season 31 when he won with social media influencer Charli D’Amelio.
When asked about her partner, Leavitt told PEOPLE,
“… When I saw that it was Mark, like jaw wide open… In my mind, I was like, play it cool, play it cool, play it cool. But internally, I was like freaking out.”
Andy Richter
Andy Richter is an American actor and comedian.
Richter is most well known as being talk show host Conan O’Brien’s sidekick on Late Night and The Tonight Show. Richter was on Late Night from 1993 to 2000. The pair then worked together again from 2010 to 2021 on O’Brien’s show Conan.
Richter also had his own show titled Andy Richter Controls the Universe that ran as an American sitcom for two seasons. The show originally aired in 2002 and featured names like Paget Brewster, Patricia Belcher, Jonathan Slaver, and more.
Currently, Richter is hosting two audio shows. He hosts The Three Question with Andy Richter, where he asks his guests, “Where do you come from? Where are you going? What have you learned?”
Additionally, Richter has a show on Sirius XM titled The Andy Richter Call-In Show. On this show, Richter invited listeners to call in and have funny, unserious chats with him.
Richter’s professional dance partner for Season 34 of DWTS is Emma Slater. Richter and Slater have definitely taken a unique approach to their social media content promoting the season, but it’s going over very well with fans.
His fellow competitors are taking to social media to post in dance costumes with bits of choreography and showing how hard they’re working. Unlike them, Richter is really leaning into his comedy roots by posting to funny trends with the help of his partner.
Slater posted a video to TikTok with the caption,
“Slowly introducing Andy to Tik Tok and he says he likes it, so this is good news.”
Lauren Jauregui
Lauren Jauregui is an American singer who is most well-known for her girl-group Fifth Harmony.
Fifth Harmony is a musical group that was created in 2012 and wrote songs, released music, and performed together until 2018. The most popular musician to come from this group of five women is Camilla Cabello, who has released a lot of popular solo music since the group disbanded and was famously dating Shawn Mendes.
Fifth Harmony’s biggest hits include songs like “Worth It,” “Miss Moving On,” and “Work From Home” with Ty Dolla $ign.
Since the musical group disbanded in 2018, Jaregui has released her own solo music. Her debut solo song was “Expectations” in 2018, but she has released over 20 songs in addition to this debut.
Jauregui’s professional partner for DWTS Season 34 is Brandon Armstrong.
Armstrong has worked on DWTS for Season 24 and became a “pro” partner in Season 27. Last season, Season 33, Armstrong made it to the finale episode with partner Chandler Kinney.
Jaregui was a last-minute addition to the cast; she only found out she was joining the cast two days before the list was announced.
According to U.S. Weekly, despite her whirlwind casting, Jaregui says,
“I’m super excited… I’m not scared.”
Premiere episode dances
- Robert Irwin and Witney Carson danced to “Born to be Wild” by Steppenwolf.
- Alix Earle and Val Chmerkovskiy danced to “Circus” by Britney Spears.
- Jen Affleck and Jan Ravnik danced to “Nuevayol” by Bad Bunny.
- Hilaria Baldwin and Gleb Savchenko danced to “Let’s Get Loud” by Jennifer Lopez.
- Jordan Chiles and Ezra Sosa danced to “Break My Soul” by Beyoncé.
- Baron Davis and Britt Stewart danced to “U Can’t Touch This” by MC Hammer.
- Dylan Efron and Daniella Karagach danced to “Milkshake” by Kelis.
- Corey Feldman and Jenna Johnson danced to “It’s Still Rock & Roll to Me” by Billy Joel.
- Danielle Fishel and Pasha Pashkov danced to “Stronger (What Doesn’t Kill You)” by Kelly Clarkson.
- Elaine Hendrix and Alan Bergen danced to “Woman” by Kesha.
- Scott Hoying and Rylee Arnold danced to “Abracadabra” by Lady Gaga.
- Whitney Leavitt and Mark Ballas danced to “Golden” by HUNTR/X from KPop Demon Hunters.
- Andy Richter and Emma Slater danced to “Hold On, I’m Coming” by Sam & Dave.
- Lauren Jauregui and Brandon Armstrong danced to “Yes, And?” by Ariana Grande.
This premiere episode was a “no elimination” night, so every pair will be returning next week. Fans are so excited to tune in and watch their favorite pairs come back for more!
