Mirrorball champs or no, Dancing With the Stars has featured some impeccable professional dancers in the years since the ABC competition series premiered in 2005. Derek Hough, Cheryl Burke Maksim ChmerkovskiyThey are just a few of the many talents who have lit up the ballroom.
Some of the show’s stars went on to achieve major success in their careers while others opted to build thriving personal lives. Some stars continue to be pros year after year, returning year after year to their beloved jobs with their close-knit family castmates and competing for the title.
Julianne HoughOne of the most prominent names to emerge from the show is, The actress won season 4 — her first as a pro — season 5 with partners Apolo Anton Ohno and Hélio Castroneves, respectively. After season 8, she left to pursue new goals. However, she returned as a Judge for seasons 19 through 24, with the exception of 22.
“Look, never say never because you never know what one day will be from the next,” Julianne told Us Weekly in August 2019 of whether she would return to Dancing With the Stars. “But I owe my career to that show! They brought me back when I was 18, and in two different ways. I was a dancer, I was a judge and I’m so happy for everything that’s going on there.”
Meanwhile, some of the show’s stars leaned on each other when it came to making baby plans. “A lot of them have come to me because … they liked how I scheduled [my pregnancy] and how I could get back to work,” Peta MurgatroydExclusively for Use in October 2019. “I think women nowadays definitely are wanting to work still not just be a stay-at-home mom. They still want to have careers, they still want to be out there being successful.”
The New Zealand native predicted “a massive baby boom” among the cast at the time. “I think a lot of them are going to do it really soon,” she explained. “They’re all kind of on the verge of, ‘Yes, let’s do it now,’ or, ‘Let’s wait another six months.’”
Lindsay Arnold and Witney CarsonBoth of them sat out season 29 in 2020 while expecting. The Catch 21Star opened up about her desire to go back to the ballroom in February 2021.
“That’s the goal,” Carson exclusively told Us. “That’s what I’m working toward. That’s in the plans for now. So if anything changes, we’ll just go with it, but that is in our sights for right now.”
Arnold and Carson were both announced as returning pros prior to the September 2021 premiere.
Scroll down to see where each item is located Dancing With the Stars pro is now.
