Dancing With the Stars pros are waiting for casting news just like Us.
“Typically, once we have a list of the pros that are gonna be on, we then, at some point, we’ll get the opportunity to hear who’s gonna be [on the show],” host Alfonso Ribeiro exclusively told Us Weekly in September 2025. “But it’s never final, right? It’s ever-changing, and there were some pairings that were different three weeks ago [this year].”
According to Ribeiro, casting continues “to evolve” as new contestants sign on and show producers match them up with their roster of pro dancers.
“You realize, ‘Oh, actually, this is a better pairing than that pairing.’ And they work on it right up until the final day until [the stars and pros] meet each other,” Ribeiro said, noting the show executives Deena Katz, Conrad Green and Rob Mills “always get it right” with partnerships. “They figure it out. I don’t know how they do it, but they always figure out how to put the right people together. They’re magical.”
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The last-minute matchups, however, can mean that the pros only learn about their slot on the season roster a mere hours before the official casting announcement is made.
Keep scrolling for everything the DWTS pros have said about the casting process:
Brandon Armstrong
Armstrong learned two days before the season 34 cast announcement that he’d be dancing with Fifth Harmony alum Lauren Jauregui.
“I was actually walking down the middle of the street. I was on, like, 37th … and the casting director called me,” Armstrong told Us in September 2025. “She’s like, ‘I got you a partner.’ [She] told me who it was, and I had to sit down on the curb. I was so excited.”
Brandon’s wife, Brylee Armstrong, claimed in a TikTok video that month he knew he’d be returning for season 34 “at the end of July.”
“There have been years where he’s gotten the call earlier, and there have been years where he’s gotten the call a lot later,” Brylee said. “Nobody’s promised a spot on the show. They have to get a group of celebrities [who] are gonna be available for a big chunk of the year. It’s, like, three to four months, so it just has to work out in their schedule. There’s a lot that goes into the pairings for the actual partnership. A big one is height [and] personality.”
Jauregui, for her part, found out that same week in 2025 — one day before jetting off to New York to appear on the Good Morning America for the full cast reveal.
Pasha Pashkov
Pashkov told Us in June 2025 that the pros are in the dark for the bulk of the casting process.
“Sometimes people think that we know [the cast in advance] and we don’t. We find out when everybody else finds out,” he said months before getting partnered with Danielle Fishel for season 34. “A few days before you meet your celeb, that’s when you know if you are on a season.”
Jenna Johnson
Johnson revealed on a June 2025 episode of the “Morning After” podcast that the pros have “different contracts.”
“I can’t speak for everybody, but if you make it all the way to the end, you’re getting paid the whole season, which is amazing,” she said. “You get a bonus on top of that for making it to the finale. If you win, it’s not like you win a million dollars and split it with your partner. You’re just getting a cute trophy together.”
Johnson also said that pros don’t find out who their partners are until the first rehearsal.
“I think people always think we know who we have and we’re keeping it a secret. Absolutely not. They do not tell us,” Johnson said. “They really don’t even want us to know the cast. It gets leaked a lot, but they want it very hush, hush, until you walk in and you meet your partner.”
Sasha Farber
Farber and former Bachelorette Jenn Tran found out about their season 33 partnership a mere 45 minutes before catching a flight to New York City for GMA.
“I got a call, it was early in the morning, saying, ‘You need to get on a flight in 45 minutes. And I was flying down to get to the airport. I didn’t have a ticket,” Farber told Us in September 2024. “I didn’t even meet her. I see her running to security. I was like, ‘That must Jenn, good, I need to be where she’s going.’”
Tran, for her part, said that she was “crying in [her] dressing room” after her After the Final Rose taping when producers revealed she needed to get on a flight less than an hour later.
Rylee Arnold
Rylee, whose sister Lindsay Arnold is a former pro herself, joined the show in 2023 when she was 18.
“Opportunities were coming up in the fall. I was either going to live in [my hometown of] Utah or come down to L.A.,” she recalled on the “Lightweights” podcast in September 2024. “It was just, like, ‘I don’t know what I’m doing,’ but I was hoping for the best.”
Eventually, Rylee received a phone call from casting director Katz, who shared that she’d be a pro on the show.
“Usually, when she calls, that means business,” Rylee quipped. “It could have gone the other way. … She was like, ‘I’m offering a spot for you as a pro on the show.’”
Each time, Katz did not share details about Rylee’s partner. She’s been paired with Harry Jowsey, Stephen Nedoroscik and Scott Hoying, respectively.
