Dancing With the Stars just dropped their first rehearsal photo from the series to Instagram, featuring a fan-favorite actor and his professional dance partner, but with a twist. It appears determined fans have already figured out who the actor’s sexy partner is and took to the comments section of the pic to make their predictions.
The photo showed Dawson’s Creek actor James Van Der Beek cradling his partner’s body as he dipped her. The twist was that the show’s creative team had altered her image to completely cover the dancer’s body with pink flowers, disguising her identity.
Right away, one of the male pros took to the comments section of the photo, making a quick quip over the pic and perhaps leading fans to whom the female might be in the altered pic.
Dancing With the Stars professional Sasha Farber remarked, “I always knew I looked good with flowers around my body!!!!!”
In succession, fans quickly chimed in after Sasha’s comment, stating that they figured it was clearly Sasha’s wife, Emma Slater, in the pic. The show had no comment on James’ professional partner. Both Sasha and Emma are slated to appear as pros this season.
Also chiming in was Season 27 winner Bobby Bones, who applauded the digital team for the “cool pic.”
Fans believed the dance pro mistakenly teased her partnership with James on her Instagram Story, which has since disappeared from public view. Many of the other female pros have had their celebrity partners leaked, as already reported by The Inquisitr, and Emma was not mentioned so they used their fan skills to make the prediction.
Fans are abuzz with who would be partnered with whom while others are frustrated at the way the show is going about releasing information on the show’s official Instagram.
A debacle in Season 27 occurred when Bobby Bones won alongside Sharna Burgess (who is not returning for this season) after low judge’s votes and not showing growth as a dancer. Since then, the show promised a host of tweaks to fans this season.
“We wanted to do something a little different this year,” DWTS executive producer Andrew Llinares said at the D23 Expo reported Us Weekly . “After 27 seasons it’s tough. We want to keep the show fresh for you guys. We just thought it would be kind of fun to hold off on revealing the partners to the audience until the premiere. … I think it’s a fun little twist.”
Llinares also announced that live voting will also be set in place, where fans will see their results at the end of that show based upon what happened that evening’s performances.
Dancing With the Stars debuts the first episode of Season 29 on Monday, September 16 at 8 p.m. ET on ABC.