It’s the end of an era for Tyra Banks and the start of a new one for Julianne Hough. Banks has announced she won’t be returning for Season 32 of the highly-popular show Dancing with the Stars, so show veteran Julianne Hough is stepping in to take her place as a host.
Banks, who’s hosted the show since 2020, is leaving the show to focus on her ice cream company, SMiZE & Dream, and bring the brand to the United States, per TMZ. Alfonso Ribeiro is also a host on the show, and Hough is taking over his previous role of interviewing dancers after their performances.
Carrie Ann Inaba, Bruno Tonioli, and Derek Hough round out the judges table.
“It is such an honor to be rejoining ‘Dancing with the Stars’ as co-host. The show holds such a special place in my heart from the many years and different roles I have had the privilege of being a part of,” Julianne Hough told Variety. She said the team has been her “family for the past 18 years” and that she can’t wait to feel the “magnetic” energy in the ballroom again.
Disney recently moved the show from ABC to Disney Plus. It’s been a consistent moneymaker for the ABC, where it ran from 2005 to 2021, and often landed on the top of the ratings. Julianne Hough first appeared on the show in 2007, and won it twice in a row, once with speed skating champion Apolo Anton Ohno, and then with Brazilian auto race driver Hélio Castroneves.
She left in ’09 but returned in 2014 as a judge. She left again in 2017 and came back as a guest judge in 2021. Her career has been regularly bolstered by the hit show, but she’s appeared in movies like Burlesque and Footloose, and was a judge on America’s Got Talent.
Dancing with the Stars returns to Disney Plus in the Fall.
