Photo Credit: ABC - Eric McCandless
According to Good Morning America, Rob Gronkowski has said he’s the best dancer in the NFL and incorporates dance moves in his workouts. He also apparently is joining Dancing With the Stars 2018 and hopes to win the mirrorball trophy. Page Six has reported that Gronk was overheard telling people at Shaquille O’Neal’s Miami Music Week event “Fun House” that he wants to win DWTS one day.
For season 26 of the show, there are some major changes coming up and there is even a new show runner, as reported by E! News. Tom Bergeron and Erin Andrews will return as hosts and Carrie Ann Inaba previously said on Live! With Kelly and Ryan that the fan-favorite judges are on board as well. The season 26 contestants, however, will be limited to just 10 contenders and the contestants will be athletes only. Perhaps this choice was made because of the popularity athletes have had on the show in recent seasons. Whatever the case, this means that no pop stars, actors, musicians or army heroes will appear.
The show is set to premiere on April 30, 2018, with the cast announcement going down on Good Morning America during the week of April 9, 2018, according to The Inquistr.
When it comes to the pro dancers on the show, some of them have become as famous, if not more, as the contestants on the show. According to Entertainment Tonight, pro Gleb Savchenko has confirmed that he will return for the all-athletes season and he has a wish list for his potential partner on the show. Pro Witney Carson has also confirmed her involvement and Artem Chigvintsev has implied that he’s coming back, but hasn’t given a solid answer. When speaking with Savchenko, he told ET Online that, “I would love to have as a partner someone who has done something connected to music. Probably a figure skater. Someone young, someone with energy. And just someone really who wants to win. I need a mirrorball.” Savchenko then added, “Someone who’s really good. Great personality is important but it’s also important that this person is capable of doing stuff. So it’s not just like, I’m working with someone great, but she’s 65-years-old and can barely do anything. So yeah, someone who is really good.”
Savchenko also revealed that this will be a shortened season and it will be a little rough. He explained, “What I think is going to happen, we’re going to have two dances a week. We have three weeks of rehearsals, four weeks of the show, and each week, we have two couples go home. So, it’ll be really intense. It’s gonna fly!”
In other DWTS news, two fan-favorite pro dancers, Sasha Farber and Emma Slater, recently got married. The couple actually got engaged live on the show and USA Today has reported that some of the DWTS-related guests included Cheryl Burke, Julianne Hough and her husband Brooks Laich, plus former contestants Nick and Vanessa Lachey, along with Drew Scott.