Daniella from ‘Dancing With The Stars’s height, confirmed

Season 33 of Dancing With The Stars kicked off on Tuesday, September 18 and there’s a lot to talk about from the premiere.

One of the most obvious was the height difference between pro Daniella Karagach and her partner, basketball player Dwight Howard. However, Daniella and Dwight didn’t let the huge vertical gap stop them, executing an impressive Night 1 routine, earning a solid 22 out of 30 from the judges.

Thanks to Daniella’s brilliant choreography and Dwight’s natural rhythm and swag, it was the second-highest score of the night.

They even joked about the height difference within their Cha Cha to Montell Jordan’s “This is How We Do It,” with Dwight lifting Daniella for a beat just to demonstrate how far she gets off of the ground.

According to Heavy, the official height difference between the two is one foot and eight inches. Dwight Howard stands at a towering six feet and eight inches tall, while his professional ballroom dancing partner is a petite five feet and two inches.

But, this isn’t the first time that Karagach has had to deal with a height difference in her five seasons as a Dancing With the Stars pro. In season 30, she was partnered with basketball player Iman Shumpert who stood at six foot five, nearly a foot and a half taller than Karagach.

The duo went on to win season 30 of Dancing With the Stars, and Karagach even earned an Emmy nomination for one of their season 30 dances, so some fans are hoping for a repeat with Dwight Howard.

But Daniella Karagach told US Magazine that she’s not so sure. She noted that they’re two completely different people and completely different dancers, so she has no expectations of a complete Iman repeat.

She did note that she had to change pretty much all of her planned choreography to accommodate Dwight’s height. She said that she came into their first rehearsal with the choreography planned out, but because of his height, she realized that it just wouldn’t work for him.

But that switch-up seemed to turn out perfectly fine, and the duo received high praise from the judges after the dance. Judge and former pro-Derek Hough even likened the pair to watching a gazelle dance with a giraffe.

As for Howard, he seems optimistic, but realistic, telling Us Weekly that “this is a great opportunity for us to celebrate and say, ‘Hey, this is what we have to do every week to win and keep moving forward,’” he said. “We don’t want to get stuck in it. We want to keep moving. Celebrate tonight, and tomorrow, it’s time to work.” At the very least, it’ll be fun to find out what else they’ve got in store, choreography-wise.

There was no elimination on night one but with a double elimination next week, we’ll find out if a gazelle and a giraffe is a good team for the dance floor.

Who knows, maybe we’re in for an Iman repeat after all.