Carrie Ann Inaba has defended Season 35 contestants with dance backgrounds against claims they hold an unfair edge.
The “Dancing With the Stars” judge, 58, spoke on Monday after fan backlash targeted cast members Jenna Dewan, 43, Harry Shum Jr., 42, and Julia Stiles, 45, for their prior training. Dewan brings more than 25 years of professional experience in commercial, hip-hop and contemporary styles, including backup work for Janet Jackson, Christina Aguilera and Missy Elliott. Shum Jr. Spent years as a backup dancer for Beyoncé, Jennifer Lopez and Mariah Carey before playing Mike Chang on “Glee.” Stiles, paired with pro Ezra Sosa, starred as an aspiring ballerina in the 2001 film “Save the Last Dance.”
Inaba pushed back on the idea that any of this guarantees success in ballroom. “What’s difficult — and I don’t think people realize this — is when you go from being a jazz dancer or a hip-hop dancer or all the other forms of dancing [to ballroom], the weight placement is so different,” she explained. “It’s weird because your body has memory, so it remembers how to dance, and it thinks it already knows how to do these moves, but it doesn’t. It takes a lot of time to un-train the body to put your weight on the front more over your toes instead of back and down and grounded.”
The judge added that the gap since their last professional work matters too. “It’s been a few years since they’ve all danced,” she noted. Still, she granted them certain strengths: “They have an advantage in some ways because they’ve got the rhythm and they’ve got the musicality and they know how to dance.” She also pointed to their sharper choreography retention skills.
Dewan herself rejected the premise entirely. “Let’s be clear. It’s two different languages,” she said last week. “There’s parts of my dance training that’s helpful, obviously. I’ve learned choreography, I can perform, but there is a certain sense of unlearning for me.” She emphasized, “I do not know how to ballroom dance.”
Her pro partner Val Chmerkovskiy framed the competition more broadly. “It’s naive to think that this show is just about dance,” he commented.
Shum Jr., paired with Jenna Johnson, offered a similar rebuttal to People. “I think everyone’s idea is like, ‘Oh, you dance, so you should be able to dance anything.’ And I mean, that’s just not true,” He continued, “There are hundreds of styles, not dozens, hundreds all over the world.”
Stiles took the argument a step further, calling her background a possible hindrance. “I think it’s a bit of a disadvantage,” she said. “To be honest, I stopped taking dance classes after that movie because people expected me to be a great dancer.” The actress described herself as strictly a “home dancer” for the past two decades. “Making that movie, yeah, it was great training and it was a wonderful opportunity, but I felt very, very self-conscious and kind of tense. And I want to let that go.”
Social media had lit up immediately after ABC unveiled the full lineup last week. “If Jenna Dewan wins #DWTS Season 35, I’m calling RIGGED. It’s completely unfair to the other contestants when Jenna is a professional dancer,” one user posted on X. Another wrote, “Harry Shum Jr. On Dancing With The Stars doesn’t seem…fair??? Like he’s gonna easily win this, no?” A third added, “Jenna Dewan and Harry Shum Jr. Are two trained professional dancers. They had legit successful dance careers before they made it as actors. Not in ballroom but it’s still a very unfair advantage.”
But defenders quickly surfaced. “Remember Heather Morris? Nothing is guaranteed,” one fan wrote, citing Shum Jr.’s “Glee” co-star and pro dancer who finished eighth in Season 24. “I’m rooting for [Dewan] and Harry. I want to see you goats tackle ballroom! 💃 🕺” Another supporter posted, “I actually don’t have an issue with Jenna Dewan being on DWTS. She’s giving the other celebrities someone to actually compete with.”
Inaba ultimately distilled the challenge to a single line: “It’s not as easy as people think.”
Season 35 of “Dancing With the Stars” launches with a two-night premiere starting Sept. 15 at 8 p.m. ET on ABC.
