When the 34th season of Dancing With the Stars premieres tonight, I will not be watching to see which former professional athlete or current TikTok star or Baldwin can best execute a rumba. My interest in the long-running franchise has little to do with dancing at all. What makes the show worth watching is the possibility that one of those former professional athletes or TikTok stars will decide it’s a good idea to embark on a public romantic relationship with their professional dance partner.
@officialdwts These dancers can’t control themselves any longer! 🪇 Don’t miss your favorites perform live, TOMORROW at 8/7c on ABC and Disney+! Next day on Hulu.
The Dancing With the Stars showmance is a trope I look forward to every season. Last year, Sports Illustrated’s “Swimsuit” issue cover model Brooks Nader hooked up with her partner, Gleb Savchenko, and while the two did not last long on the show — they were eliminated week four after a subpar salsa — they parlayed their on-again, off-again relationship into months of tabloid coverage and TikTok views. (Nader’s sister Grace Ann memorably revealed on the Chicks in the Office podcast that the couple had sex “constantly” in their trailer on set.) Their final breakup was documented extensively last month in Nader’s new Hulu reality show, Love Thy Nader. (Nader claims Savchenko cheated on her with multiple women in Joshua Tree; Savchenko denies this; I’m along for the ride.)
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Nader is not even the first star Savchenko has dated (allegedly). He was linked to Selling Sunset star Chrishell Stause in 2020 and Hallmark actress and podcast host Jana Kramer in 2022 (while he was still married to his ex-wife, oops).
What is it about ballroom dancing in front of a live studio audience that sets the table for romance? Almost every season there is at least one breakout couple, though they never last much longer than their time on the show, leaving some fans to conclude that the relationships are “fake.” Bikini model Alexis Ren started dating her pro, Alan Bersten, in 2019, but the relationship quickly fizzled out once they left the studio lot. “Alexis has been in Japan working and Alan is in L.A. rehearsing for the DWTS tour, so it’s hard to date when you’re in separate countries,” a source told People at the time. Mm-hmm. Bersten is now dating fellow pro dancer Emma Slater.
@jenntranx Private rehearsals starting ASAP #DWTS
Another recent showmance involving former Bachelorette Jenn Tran and pro Sasha Farber quietly ended in June, a few months after the couple’s season together, with a source telling Us Weekly that Tran is now focused on studying to become a physician’s assistant. (To add to the tangled web of pro-dancer relationships: Farber used to be married to Slater.)
Occasionally, Dancing With the Stars pros will speak out against the culture of showmances, arguing that it taints the competition. Pro dancer Val Chmerkovskiy said on the Lightweights podcast last year that he doesn’t like “when it’s two adults putting on a show because they know they can manipulate the algorithm to give them more likes and more views and more this — I just don’t like anything that’s inauthentic.”
Before Chmerkovskiy married fellow pro Jenna Johnson in 2019, however, he dated … his brother’s dance partner Amber Rose. “Long time ago, my first couple of seasons, I’ve been given partners that I did have romantic exchanges with — incredibly unprofessional to do so, in my mind,” he acknowledged on the podcast.
@officialdwts Can’t wait to see these besties hit the dance floor tomorrow! ✨ #DWTS
Perhaps, but everyone on this show is an adult, and the showmances make the show. Now we just have to wait and see who will fall in love (or something like it) this season. Will Hilaria Baldwin leave Alec for her new partner, Savchenko? One can only dream.
@jenniferaffleckk Here we go !!! 🪩💃 @Dancing with the Stars DWTS @Jan Ravnik
Personally, I will be watching the Secret Lives of Mormon Wives star Jen Affleck and her partner, Jan Ravnik, veeeery closely. Ravnik is new to the show and was most recently a backup dancer on Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour. The two have already posted several TikTok videos together, which have garnered fan comments like, “They gave her the hottest one on purpose im dead.” My apologies to Affleck’s husband, Zac.
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