Skip to footer

'Dancing With the Stars' season 20: Here's who will be participating

Celebrity contestants for the upcoming season of 'Dancing With the Stars' include football player Michael Sam, singer Patti LaBelle, and 'Three's Company' actress Suzanne Somers.

|
Charles Sykes/Invision/AP
Patti Labelle (r.) accepts the Living Legend Award from presenter Mariah Carey at BET Networks' Black Girls Rock!

The cast for the twentieth season of the ABC reality competition “Dancing With the Stars” has been announced.

Football player Michael Sam, singer Patti LaBelle, “Three’s Company” actress Suzanne Somers, Willow Shields of “The Hunger Games” (she plays protagonist Katniss's sister Prim), and LMFAO member Redfoo are among the celebrities competing this season. 

Also taking part are Olympic gymnast Nastia Liukin, actress Rumer Willis, model Charlotte McKinney, “Shark Tank” investor Robert Herjavec, singer Riker Lynch, and military veteran Noah Galloway.

The professional dancers who will be competing include Artem Chigvintsev, Peta Murgatroyd, Kym Johnson, Derek Hough, Allison Holker, Emma Slater, Mark Ballas, Tony Dovolani, Valentin Chmerkovskiy, Sharna Burgess, and Keo Motsepe. 

Professional competitor Witney Carson will also participate and her celebrity partner will be announced later.

According to USA Today, Shields will be the youngest “Dancing” contestant ever at age 14.

Judges Carrie Ann Inaba, Julianne Hough, Len Goodman, and Bruno Tonioli will return for the new season, according to TheWrap. 

Alfonso Ribeiro, who appeared on the sitcom “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,” and his professional partner Carson won this past season, while Chmerkovskiy and Olympic ice dancer Meryl Davis won the previous installment. Of the professional participants, Derek Hough has won five times. Julianne Hough used to participate as a professional contestant before she became a judge for this past season.

Hough had left the show in 2009 and appeared in such movies as “Footloose” and “Rock of Ages.” “My role is to encourage and be supportive, and to also be candid and honest and try not to beat around the bush, to be too politically correct," Hough said of being a judge in an interview with People. "I want to give critiques so they can improve. I'm not there to be harsh or cause a controversy. I won't be mean or malicious. That's not who I am. That's not my role at all.” 

“Dancing” debuted in the U.S. in 2005. Soap opera actress Kelly Monaco and professional dancer Alec Mazo won the first season.

The new season will debut on March 16.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to 'Dancing With the Stars' season 20: Here's who will be participating
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/The-Culture/Culture-Cafe/2015/0224/Dancing-With-the-Stars-season-20-Here-s-who-will-be-participating
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe