The 32nd season of Dancing With the Stars is just around the corner and professional dancer Lindsay Arnold has confirmed that she won’t be back to the ballroom this year. The season 25 mirrorball winner explained in a TikTok video on Aug. 24 that she had thought about her decision a lot but was choosing to spend more time with her family.
“I’ve really been considering the option and seeing if it’s something we can fit into our life,” she shared, “and ultimately this season is not gonna work out for me and my family.” When she’s not competing on Dancing With the Stars, Arnold lives in Utah with her husband and two daughters, and it’s difficult for the choreographer to pack up and leave her family for weeks to film in California.
“I don’t want to separate our family,” she said in her video, explaining that her husband works full-time in Utah. “I don’t really want to put my kids through that right now. I feel like this time of their life is so precious and it’s moving so, so fast and I want to cherish every single moment. I don’t want to miss a beat.” Arnold and her husband Sam Cusick have a two-year-old daughter, Sage, while their second daughter, June, was born in May 2023.
Arnold fully intends to return to the ballroom, however, as she revealed that she isn’t hanging up her dancing shoes yet. “Last season when I kind of announced that I wasn’t doing it, it’s not like I retired, it’s not like I said, ‘I’m done forever, I’ll never ever consider doing the show again,’ cause I will,” she shared. She later explained that she would take each season at a time and consider what was right for her family each season.
While Arnold won’t be competing for this season’s mirrorball, a couple of other pros have shared that they’re likely to return for season 32. Britt Stewart hinted in an interview with Us Weekly that she was really looking forward to the upcoming season and said, “We have a lot to live up to from last season.” Val Chmerkovskiy confirmed to Us Weekly that he’d be back and was hoping to “ride the momentum” of his excellent season last year, during which he finished as a runner-up with his celebrity partner Gabby Windey.
Chmerkovskiy also said his wife Jenna Johnson, who was absent last season due to her pregnancy, would be returning for season 32 and said she was “excited” to be back. Johnson and Chmerkovskiy welcomed their first child together, a son named Rome, in Jan. 2023.
The full cast of celebrities competing this season will be announced on Good Morning America on Sept. 13. Although ABC has yet to confirm the premiere date for the show, it is likely to be in late September, based on the start date of the past several seasons.