Times are changing! Emma Slater and husband Sasha Farber opened up about the Dancing With the Stars switch for season 29 that will result in them being separated all season long.
Despite quarantining together for months amid the coronavirus pandemic, beginning this week, when the ABC series resumes filming, the couple will have to live apart — as will fellow married pros Jenna Johnson and Val Chmerkovskiy and Daniella Karagach and Pasha Pashkov.
“It’s so funny, when our amazing producers told us, ‘OK, so we have some news for you, you’re going to have to be quarantined separately,’ I laughed,” Slater, 31, told Entertainment Tonight on Tuesday, August 18. “I was nervous, so I just started laughing.”
After the initial shock wore off, Slater and her husband of two years decided that she would be the one moving out of their home during the season.
“She would burn the house down,” Farber, 36, joked about the reasoning for his wife’s departure from their house. “All my flowers would die, the dog would die, the house would be a mess.”
The couple, who wed in March 2018, will have to rely on seeing each other from across the ballroom as they go back to work amid the pandemic.
“He does stress me out a little bit, but it’s going to be hard because we are best friends,” the British dancer said. “I know that we’re going to have each other on speed dial all the time. Even living together right now, being in each other’s faces 24 hours, we still manage to call and text each other a lot. It’s really weird.”
Even with the separation requirement, the pair are excited to be dancing for the show’s viewers once again.
“It’s really important to do these things and it’s great that producers thought of this,” Farber explained. “There’s lots of things happening — masks, social distancing — and this is one way of making sure that everyone’s safe, strong and the show goes on. Because we need this show!”
Slater echoed her love’s sentiments adding, “Everybody needs this right now. It’s such an uplifting show and we’re so incredibly proud to be part of it.”
Earlier in the day, the lovebirds were announced as part of the pro dancer lineup for the upcoming season. Peta Murgatroyd and Cheryl Burke were among other dancers asked to compete on the upcoming season. Season 27 winner Sharna Burgess will also join the cast once again, a year after being cut from the series.
The pros announcement came one month after original host Tom Bergeron and his longtime cohost Erin Andrews were let go from the dancing show in July.
The network replaced the two TV personalities with Tyra Banks as the new solo host for the upcoming season. She is also now an executive producer of the series.
Dancing With the Stars premieres on ABC on Monday, September 14, at 8 p.m. ET.
