<\/p>\n
Dancing with the Stars<\/a><\/em> pro Val Chmerkovskiy<\/a><\/strong> has one casting wish for season 35.<\/p>\n \u201cLess politicians,\u201d Chmerkovskiy told\u00a0Us Weekly<\/a><\/em>\u00a0on Saturday<\/a>, Apr. 25.<\/p>\n \u201cOne of the things I admire about our show, I love being a part of the fact that in a world quite literally designed to split us all apart and create agony amongst people, we\u2019re a show that creates union and brings people together,\u201d he continued. \u201cYes, it\u2019s just a dance show, but it\u2019s way more than just a dance show.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDance is just a vehicle to bring people together\u2014of all ages, all political sides,” Chmerkovskiy added. “No one knows who\u2019s voting for who, and we\u2019re all just enjoying ourselves and enjoying two hours a week of just good family fun.”<\/p>\n RELATED: Who\u2019s Going to Be on\u00a0\u2018DWTS\u2019\u00a0Season 35?<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n Though the three-time champion has never been partnered with someone in the political sphere, the show has previously cast controversial figures like former Texas Governor\u00a0Rick Perry<\/strong>, former Fox News host\u00a0Tucker Carlson<\/strong>\u00a0and former White House press secretary\u00a0Sean Spicer<\/strong>.<\/p>\n \u201cMy reaction was like, \u2018Yo, Sean Spicer\u2019s on the cast!\u2019 That was my reaction calling my brother,\u201d Chmerkovskiy\u00a0told\u00a0People<\/em><\/a>in September 2019 after Spicer was cast on season 28 of the reality series.<\/p>\n \u201cBut then in the same breath, it\u2019s like, and so is\u00a0Ray Lewis\u00a0and so is\u00a0Lamar Odom\u00a0and so is\u00a0Christie Brinkley<\/a>\u00a0and so is\u00a0Hannah [Brown],\u201d he continued. \u201cThe thing that makes our show unique and wild and crazy and entertaining is the fact that it\u2019s a collective of all these different people. And you don\u2019t have to agree or follow all these people.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re all very different,” he concluded at the time. “And the beauty, me being a dance ambassador, is\u2014what I find a lot of pride in is how inclusive dance is and that it doesn\u2019t judge based on any of the past.\u201d<\/p>\n RELATED: \u2018DWTS\u2019 Live Tour Announces Major Cast Shakeup<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n During Hulu’s “Get Real” event on Wednesday<\/a>, Apr. 22, DWTS<\/a><\/em> announced their first two celebrity contestants for season 35: Summer House<\/a><\/em>‘s Ciara Miller<\/strong> and Love Island<\/em>‘s Maura Higgins<\/strong>\u2014who also recently starred on The Traitors<\/em>.<\/p>\n \u201cCiara seems very, very dynamic and very positive, and looks like she\u2019s excited to do the show,\u201d Chmerkovskiy told\u00a0Us Weekly<\/em>. \u201cMaura seems very lovely as well. I can\u2019t predict either one of them being my partner.\u201d<\/p>\n He added, \u201cIt\u2019s kind of like quiet dating or an arranged situation so whoever the casting director puts me with, I will give my all and like I said, every season, they\u2019ll have my undivided attention and effort and focus, and I\u2019ll give them everything I got.\u201d<\/p>\n Dancing with the Stars<\/em> returns in September 2026.<\/p>\n \ud83e\udea9\u00a0<\/strong>SIGN UP for our Dancing with the Stars newsletter to get access to exclusive news, interviews, songs, recaps & more<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0\ud83e\udea9<\/strong><\/p>\n This story was originally published by Parade<\/a> on Apr 27, 2026, where it first appeared in the News<\/a> section. Add Parade as a Preferred Source by clicking here.<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Dancing with the Stars pro Val Chmerkovskiy has one casting wish for season 35. \u201cLess politicians,\u201d Chmerkovskiy told\u00a0Us Weekly\u00a0on Saturday, Apr. 25. \u201cOne of the things I admire about our show, I love being a part of the fact that in a world quite literally designed to split us all apart and create agony amongst […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2390823,"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":[365737,41508,373854,351924],"class_list":["post-2390822","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-chmerkovskiy","tag-dancing-with-the-stars","tag-sean-spicer","tag-val-chmerkovskiy"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Val-Chmerkovskiy-Reveals-Why-He-Wants-\u2018Less-Politicians-on-\u2018Dancing.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2390822","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=2390822"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2390822\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2390824,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2390822\/revisions\/2390824"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2390823"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2390822"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2390822"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2390822"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}