‘Dancing With The Stars’ Spoilers: Pro Slate For Season 20 Coming Together, ABC Set To Confirm
Season 20 of Dancing With the Stars debuts soon, and at least a partial slate of pros dancing this time around will be officially announced on Good Morning America Wednesday morning. There has been a lot of speculation and buzz building regarding this DWTS season, and now one fan favorite has confirmed that she will not be participating this time around. What’s the latest?
Karina Smirnoff had been rumored to be out, then maybe in, and now she says via her Instagram that she is moving on and not dancing this season on DWTS. Smirnoff said not long ago that when she had news to share, she would share it herself, and now she has.
Smirnoff says as follows.
“After a lot of thought and prayer, I’ve decided to focus my energies on some other exciting endeavors including adding author to my resume. I have absolutely loved dancing for all of you for all these years and feel blessed to have been given a platform to put my passion for dance, choreography and creativity on display. DWTS has been a huge part of my life for the last 10 years and I will always have a special place in my heart for it.”
The DWTS star says that she has a lot of new projects in the works, including a book called We’re Just Not That Into You: Dating Disasters from the Trenches that was just released. Karina’s Dancing With the Stars departure comes on the heels of Derek Hough taking a season off to do a show, and Cheryl Burke leaving to work on a show on NBC.
Who does it seem will be “in” for Dancing With the Stars Season 20? Val Chmerkovskiy has said he’s returning, and fans have been feeling pretty confident that Mark Ballas, Tony Dovolani, Witney Carson, and Peta Murgatroyd would be back. It seems that Sharna Burgess is headed back, and a tweet from Allison Holker would seemingly indicate she will be dancing again, too.
An Instagram post by publicist Lizzie Grubman shows her with Artem Chigvintsev on a plane from Los Angeles to New York just hours ahead of the NYC GMA announcement, so that would seemingly indicate that Artem will get another celebrity for DWTS Season 20 as well. Some are betting that Emma Slater and Keo Motsepe may get spots again, though that’s not for certain yet, and there may be some new pros in the mix.
Those behind Dancing With the Stars have teased that there are big things ahead for this season, and there has been buzz that some older pros may be back. It seems fan favorites like Tristan MacManus and Kym Johnson have been approached, but there’s no word yet on whether they were enticed back. Others have bandied about the names of Louis Van Amstel, Lacy Schwimmer, Anna Trebunskaya, and even Maksim Chmerkovskiy as possibilities.
As PureDWTS notes, there are a lot of possibilities when the troupe is factored into things, too. While in some seasons the pro slate is pretty definitively figured out ahead of the official announcement, that is definitely not the case this season. How will fans respond to the departures of some pros who have been a part of the show for most of its existence? Will there be some exciting, new blood added to rev things up for this anniversary season?
Fans will learn of at least some of the Season 20 Dancing With the Stars pros on Wednesday, February 11. However, it seems that it may only be part of the group, with additional confirmations coming closer to the March premiere date. Next up will be DWTS spoilers and speculation about the celebrity cast, and fans can’t wait to see who will be in the mix of things.
[Photo by Robin Marchant/Getty Images]
