Dancing With the Stars is adding two more Mormons to the mix for season 34 — and pro Ezra Sosa is fully on board.
“The more the merrier,” the 24-year-old dancer teased during an exclusive interview with Us Weekly on Thursday, July 10. “There’s never enough Mormons on Dancing With the Stars.”
Earlier this month, news broke that Secret Lives of Mormon Wives stars Jen Affleck and Whitney Leavitt will join previously announced competitors Robert Irwin and Alix Earle in the battle for the mirrorball trophy this fall. Like Jen and Whitney, several DWTS pros hail from Utah and have Mormon backgrounds.
“Everyone in Utah has a thing,” Ezra — who grew up in the Salt Lake City area — told Us. “My thing was dance, but my neighbor’s thing was piano. Every kid had a sport and activity. … And the dance culture in Utah is really big too, especially with ballroom.”
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According to Ezra, the interest in ballroom dance “trinkled down into society” after being introduced through BYU and other schools in the area. “You have so many dance studios now teaching ballroom and all these different kinds of styles, but it’s a very vibrant dance community in Utah,” he said, joking, “And good TV too.”
Ezra went on to admit that he’s “obsessed” with Mormon Wives and the world of MomTok, which “reminds [him] of home.”
“Utah moms are bad bitches,” he added. “Especially the moms I dealt with, because I grew up in a dance studio … so the moms I was around were dance moms, and if there’s one thing you don’t f*** with, it’s their money and their kids. So I got to see a lot of interesting personalities growing up. I loved getting to see kind of similar characters on a TV show.”
Jen and Whitney both gained recognition as part of the viral MomTok group, often tackling popular TikTok dances and other social media trends. While learning ballroom choreography is a different challenge, Ezra told Us that the women could have an advantage.
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“Anyone with any kind of dance experience will have a leg up,” he explained. “You’ll have someone who’s literally never even step-touched before, and that’s the most basic thing you can do, so you’re working from the ground up. But for them, they kind of have a good sense of rhythm. And you see in their TikToks, they’re doing their thing. You can sense that they have a little bit of dance ability. They can understand rhythm, they can understand timing. So they definitely have a leg up.”
Ezra is also “curious” to see how having two personalities from the same show will play into the competition.
“I think it’s very interesting. … We never really know why [people are cast],” he said. “We’ll see how it unfolds.”
Dancing With the Stars season 34 is expected to premiere on ABC this fall.
