Dancing with the Stars season 35 will open with a two-night premiere on Sept. 15 and Sept. 16, then settle into a weekly Tuesday run on ABC and Disney+ after that. The return gives viewers a fixed Dancing With The Stars Season Schedule, but it also splits the premiere itself into two parts before the competition becomes routine.
That split matters because not every celebrity will dance on the same night. On Premiere: Night One, the male celebrities will perform to a number one song from the year they were born, and one celebrity will be eliminated at the end of the show. On Premiere: Night Two, the female celebrities will take the floor under the same rule, with another elimination closing out the second night. For Ciara Miller, who is paired with Brandon Armstrong, the format means the season does not start as one even field. It starts as two separate launches, each with its own pressure and its own exit.
Alfonso Ribeiro and Julianne Hough are back as co-hosts, while Carrie Ann Inaba, Bruno Tonioli and Derek Hough return to the judges' table. The season includes celebrities from sports, acting, reality TV and social media, and the list also includes Jenna Dewan, Julia Stiles and Tyler Cameron. Other pairings include Guillermo Rodriguez with Witney Carson, Harry Shum Jr. with Jenna Johnson, Tatyana Ali with Jan Ravnik, Giada De Laurentiis with Alan Bersten, Taylor Hanson with Britt Stewart and Connor Wood with Rylee Arnold. Ezra Frech is paired with Daniella Karagach, Amber Glenn with Pasha Pashkov, Jackson Olson with Emma Slater, Maura Higgins with Mark Ballas, Conner Leavitt with Adele Zaikman, and Sarah Jane Nader with Hailey Bills.
The schedule also fits the show’s larger pattern. Dancing with the Stars first debuted in 2005 and has run for more than two decades, pairing celebrities with professional ballroom dancers in pursuit of the Len Goodman Mirrorball Trophy. Season 33 ended on Nov. 26, 2024, and season 34 wrapped on Nov. 25, 2025, with a three-hour finale, a reminder that the show usually builds toward a November finish. This time, the first real marker is earlier: a two-night opening that sorts the cast before the weekly Tuesday cycle begins.
What remains unresolved is not when the show returns, but how quickly the new cast will narrow. The premiere will already send one celebrity home on each night, so the season begins with two eliminations before the first Tuesday episode ever airs.
