Dancing With the Stars Revealed: How Much the Stars Made, Their Chosen Partners, and the Show’s Untold Secrets

Dancing With the Stars Season 34 Hits the Ballroom

You will be able to get your Mirrorball Trophy ready—Dancing With the Stars is back!
Season 34 is going to start on Sept. 16 at 8 p.m. EST on ABC and Disney+, with Julianne Hough and Alfonso Ribeiro returning as hosts. Judges Carrie Ann Inaba, Bruno Tonioli, and Derek Hough will be back at the panel as well, ready to give marks for the spins, dips, and lifts.
The line-up of this season is full of stars. Besides gymnast Jordan Chiles and Baron Davis, a former NBA star, who bring sporty side to the show, actors Danielle Fishel (Boy Meets World), Elaine Hendrix (The Parent Trap), Corey Feldman (The Goonies) have added the Hollywood glitz. Moreover, the music industry is quite comprehensively represented by Fifth Harmony’s Lauren Jauregui and Pentatonix’s Scott Hoying.

More Stars Join the Ballroom Lineup

But the season 34 cast isn’t done growing yet. Dylan Efron, from The Traitors, is swapping scheming for skating, while Jen Affleck and Whitney Leavitt from The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives are going on stage. Furthermore, the dancing shoe of TikTok star Alix Earle, wildlife conservationist Robert Irwin, comedian Andy Richter, and Hilaria Baldwin—wife of Alec Baldwin—are also putting on their dancing shoe and ready to dance.
Derek Hough the judge, in a chat with E! News, gave the following hint about the upcoming season, “I believe the fans can expect a season with a strong competitive spirit. A season where there will be a lot of social media as the majority of the cast have that worked out. So you’re merely not gonna get the show, but a 24/7 show as well.”

The Pros Return to the Ballroom

Of course, it is a two-person dance—this season’s celebrities will be paired with some of the show’s most popular pros. Although not all dancers are coming back, fans can still support the likes of Britt Stewart, Gleb Savchenko, Jenna Johnson, Val Chmerkovskiy, Daniella Karagach, Pasha Pashkov, Rylee Arnold, Witney Carson, Brandon Armstrong, Ezra Sosa, Emma Slater, and Alan Bersten.
Besides, Mark Ballas is also going to be back a great deal excitedly after three years away, whereas Jan Ravnik—just at the finish of Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour—is in the lineup for his DWTS pro debut.
This season is also the 20th anniversary of Dancing With the Stars; therefore, the whole thing carries heavier implications. If you have been following Season 1 or you are a brand-new fan, there is no better time than now to check out your trivia and get in the groove of the show’s past.

Celebrity Paychecks Revealed

Have you ever been curious about the amount needed for celebrities to take part in Dancing with the Stars? Well, the answer can be found in a report published by Variety in 2019. According to the report, the actors get $125,000 for the time they rehearse and their first two weeks on the show.
If they become finalists, they get more money for every week they continue on the show. The sources from that time state that a celebrity could get a maximum of $295,000, although ABC has never confirmed these numbers publicly.

What Do the DWTS Pros Earn?

Similarly, as with the celebrity participants, the information of the professional dancers’ salary on Dancing With the Stars is kept confidential to a great extent. Nevertheless, it seems that their profits also rise the longer they stay in the contest.
In the event that the pro is eliminated in the first round, they are still not left with no money. “You’re definitely guaranteed up to a certain number of weeks,” Jenna Johnson confided on a June 2025 episode of Kelly Stafford and Hank Winchester’s podcast, The Morning After. While giving a disclaimer, she said: “I think there might be different contracts. I can’t speak for everyone.”

Do Pros Earn More If They Win?

It is quite unexpected, but the answer is no.

Jenna Johnson—who was the winner of season 26 with Olympic figure skater Adam Rippon and also of season 33 with The Bachelor’s Joey Graziadei—stated that professional dancers do not get a higher salary if they are the winners of the Len Goodman Mirrorball Trophy.
Nevertheless, a lot of reasons remain to be motivated till the end of the competition. “If you go all the way to the end, you are getting paid for the whole season, which is fantastic, and you also get a bonus for making it to the finale,” Johnson said on The Morning After. “It’s not like if you win, you get $1 million and have to share it with your partner. You are just getting a nice little trophy together.”

Do Troupe Members Make the Same Amount as the Pros?

Apparently, that is not the case.

On an episode from 2022 of Jason Tartick’s Trading Secrets podcast, dancer Lindsay Arnold disclosed that her paycheck was reduced ‘more than in half’ when she was reclassified from pro to troupe member.’

How Do Pros and Celebs Get Paired?

In the case of pairing professional dancers with celebrity partners, the pros have very limited input.
“You are not allowed to have a say,” Lindsay Arnold disclosed during an episode of Maggie Sellers’ Hot Smart Rich podcast in May 2025. “It’s really just, ‘Here is your partner. Make it work.’”
Jenna Johnson supported that statement by saying that the process of pairing is a secret that is closely guarded. “They really want to keep it a secret until you see them in person,” she said on The Morning After. “I think people always believe that we know who we have and we are just keeping it a secret. No, not at all. They do not tell us. They really don’t even want the cast for us. It gets leaked a lot, but they want it very secret until you come in and meet your partner.”

What Factors Go Into Pairings?

What exactly does the staff of Dancing With the Stars consider when they make the partnerships? The answer lies with ex-showrunner Rob Wade, who says that it comes down to balance—both physically and metaphorically.
“It’s really a question of height, build, and personality and the ability to get along,” Wade stated in an interview with E! News in 2015. “We never assign pairs in which the members are not going to get on. It’s too much an extreme situation. It’s not like The Bachelor or something, we cannot do that. That would just be a miserable experience for the celebrity, for us and the viewer. You don’t want to see two people who don’t like each other and, quite frankly, we have made that mistake pairing people up who didn’t get on so well.”

How Often Do Pros and Celebs Practice?

In short, They Do Not Practice Once.

“Every day we do four-hours of rehearsals,” pro dancer Rylee Arnold confided in a September 2024 episode of the Lightweights Podcast With Joe Vulpis. “It’s either from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m., 1:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. or 5:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.”
And the hustle usually continues after the rehearsals end. Rylee explained that the pros might be socializing with the producers or in the creative team, creating choreographies, or watching dances for reference. “My dancing is literally my entire life,” she said. “However, it is my passion and what I love. So, it makes me so happy.”
It’s practically a six-day commitment as well. “We have our show day on Tuesday and then it’s Wednesday to Sunday, straight rehearsals,” she added. “And then we have camera blocking on Monday and then Tuesday’s show day again.”

Do Pros Pick the Songs Each Week?

“Most of the time, yes,” in a video on Instagram in September 2025, said the pros Emma Slater and Britt Stewart. “Anyway, it is a joint work with the producers.”

How Are the Costumes Made?

In case you are under the impression that the quickstep was the most rapid part, the costume department on Dancing With the Stars is still able to accomplish their work in less time than that.”
In 2017, to TV Insider, the costume designer Daniela Gschwendtner explained, “We meet with the set and lighting designers, dancers and talent and create a story [for each pair]. Then we sketch out some ideas. We have at most five days to sew all the outfits. That means half a day per costume, and that does not even count the time for placing the rhinestones. The fitting and trimming which are done later. There are approximately 20 people in our department and we have a separate tailor shop. It’s a rather large business.”

Do They Reuse Costumes?

Most DWTS costumes are actually made brand new every week. The costume designer Steven Norman Lee revealed that the pairs usually try on their outfits for the very first time just a few hours before the show. He added, “Maybe we will re-use a pair of pants for the boys,” but almost everything else is made specifically for each dance.”
Daniela Gschwendtner also stated that they might be turning over some of the wardrobe for the group to wear in the studio or for promotional shoots, but that the competition pieces are almost always new. “We don’t use our old clothes unless there’s a specific reason for it,” she said. “We try to keep everybody fresh and new with something different every week so that it remains interesting.”