{"id":2386290,"date":"2026-04-23T18:39:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-23T18:39:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2386290"},"modified":"2026-04-23T18:39:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T18:39:12","slug":"dancing-with-the-stars-winner-robert-irwin-is-returning-in-a-new-role","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/dancing-with-the-stars-winner-robert-irwin-is-returning-in-a-new-role\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cDancing With the Stars\u201d winner Robert Irwin is returning \u2014 in a new role"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div data-article-body=\"true\">\n<h3 class=\"mb-4 text-lg font-bold\">Key Points<\/h3>\n<ul class=\"mb-4\">\n<li class=\"ml-4 list-disc\">\n<div class=\"\">\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Dancers will compete for a spot on <em>Dancing With the Stars<\/em> in the new spinoff <em>The Next Pro<\/em>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li class=\"ml-4 list-disc\">\n<div class=\"\">\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Former winner Robert Irwin will host the series.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li class=\"ml-4 list-disc\">\n<div class=\"\">\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\"><em>DWTS<\/em> pro Mark Ballas and his mother Shirley are confirmed as judges.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The reigning champion of <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" data-yga=\"{\" ylinkelement=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/ew.com\/dancing-with-the-stars\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"elm:link;elmt:article_link;slk:Dancing With the Stars;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \"><em>Dancing With the Stars<\/em><\/a> is ready to help find the next pro.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\"><a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" data-yga=\"{\" ylinkelement=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/ew.com\/robert-irwin-pays-tribute-crocodile-hunter-family-legacy-dwts-11811638\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"elm:link;elmt:article_link;slk:Robert Irwin;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Robert Irwin<\/a>, who won the most recent season, will serve as the host of the spinoff competition series <em>Dancing With the Stars: The Next Pro<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Premiering July 13 on ABC, <em>The Next Pro <\/em>will follow 12 up-and-coming dancers as they move into the same house and participate in a grueling audition process in hopes of being selected as one of the dancers on season 35 of <em>DWTS,<\/em> which is set to air this fall.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Longtime <em>DWTS<\/em> dancer and three-time winner Mark Ballas will serve as a judge alongside his mom, Shirley Ballas, a.k.a. &#8220;the Queen of Latin.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\"><strong><em>Get your daily dose of entertainment news, celebrity updates, and what to watch with our\u00a0EW Dispatch newsletter.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">In November, Irwin and partner Witney Carson were crowned the champions of season 34, the second victory for the Irwin family after his older sister Bindi took home the trophy in season 21. The 22-year-old conservationist previously spoke about honoring his late father, <em>Crocodile Hunter<\/em> host Steve Irwin.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;Continuing his legacy has now meant we&#8217;re able to write our own story, and I&#8217;m able to create my own legacy,&#8221; <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" data-yga=\"{\" ylinkelement=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/ew.com\/robert-irwin-shares-how-dwts-brought-him-closer-to-late-dad-steve-irwin-11858207\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"elm:link;elmt:article_link;slk:he said;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">he said<\/a>. &#8220;I hope in everything I do to make him proud, and I&#8217;m just so grateful that I got to live out this dream.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\"><em>Summer House<\/em>&#8216;s Ciara Miller and <em>Love Island<\/em>&#8216;s Maura Higgins were <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" data-yga=\"{\" ylinkelement=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/ew.com\/dancing-with-the-stars-season-35-reveals-first-2-contestants-11956574\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"elm:link;elmt:article_link;slk:recently announced;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">recently announced<\/a> as the first two contestants on<em> DWTS<\/em> season 35.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Read the original article on <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" data-yga=\"{\" ylinkelement=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/ew.com\/dancing-with-the-stars-robert-irwin-the-next-pro-11957093\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"elm:link;elmt:article_link;slk:Entertainment Weekly;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Entertainment Weekly<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><em> \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em> \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Key Points Dancers will compete for a spot on Dancing With the Stars in the new spinoff The Next Pro. Former winner Robert Irwin will host the series. DWTS pro Mark Ballas and his mother Shirley are confirmed as judges. The reigning champion of Dancing With the Stars is ready to help find the next [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2386291,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[369203,41508,344314,353608,376568,354743,361849],"class_list":["post-2386290","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-crocodile-hunter","tag-dancing-with-the-stars","tag-mark-ballas","tag-robert-irwin","tag-shirley-ballas","tag-steve-irwin","tag-witney-carson"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Dancing-With-the-Stars-winner-Robert-Irwin-is-returning-\u2014.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2386290","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2386290"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2386290\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2386292,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2386290\/revisions\/2386292"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2386291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2386290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2386290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2386290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}