Witney Carson Returns to Dancing With the Stars Season 35 — While Pregnant
Witney Carson will dance through her third pregnancy on the upcoming 35th season of Dancing With the Stars, making her the first professional dancer on the show to enter a season while pregnant.
Carson revealed the news on 17 August 2026, in an appearance on Good Morning America, with The Hollywood Reporter publishing the announcement the same day. A follow-up interview published 18 August by The Hollywood Reporter added detail: Carson is expecting her third child with husband Carson McAllister, and she is entering her second trimester the week after that interview — meaning the worst of her first-trimester sickness, which she described as severe enough to force her to drop out of contracted work, is behind her.
The timing was deliberate. Carson told The Hollywood Reporter she made the decision to return to the dance floor after conversations with DWTS casting director Deena Katz and her husband. She is partnered this season with Guillermo Rodriguez, the talk-show personality best known from Jimmy Kimmel Live!
Carson's pregnancy announcement was tied to her guest-judging appearance on The Next Pro, a Dancing With the Stars spinoff in which a group of dancers competes for a shot at becoming the next professional on the main show. Robert Irwin — Carson's former celebrity partner on DWTS — hosted the episode. Contestants on Monday night's instalment taught fans a routine, and Carson sat on the panel. She told The Hollywood Reporter she was honoured to be asked and enjoyed giving what she called positive criticism.
For fans, the headline is straightforward: a familiar pro dancer is coming back to the ballroom with a new partner and a visibly different personal circumstance than any season has seen before. The show has had pregnant competitors in the past, but never a professional dancer starting a season expecting.
Dancing With the Stars season 35 will premiere with a two-night event on Tuesday, 15 September 2026, according to People. That gives Carson roughly a month before she is back in the studio, choreographing and performing live — a schedule she and the production clearly weighed before committing.
What makes this stand out is the layers packed into a single casting note. Carson is returning, she is pregnant, she has a new partner, and she used a spinoff appearance to break the news — each detail landing on its own but together telling a fuller story about how the DWTS franchise is building its off-season momentum. The Next Pro exists to feed new talent into the mothership; Carson's guest spot put a veteran face on that pipeline at the exact moment she was making her own headline.
Carson has been a professional dancer on Dancing With the Stars since season 18 in 2014. She won season 19 with actor Alfonso Ribeiro. Her return for season 35 adds another chapter to a run that has now spanned more than a decade on the show.
