Is Mark Ballas returning to Dancing With the Stars for season 35? His future is still up in the air.
“I’m not sure if I’m returning yet,” Ballas, 39, told Us Weekly exclusively at the Disney 2026 Upfront Red Carpet in New York City on Tuesday, May 12. “I just had a really solid, straight patch of Dancing with the Stars, The Traitors, The Next Pro that we just shot.”
He continued, “I just finished doing Chicago on Broadway, so I’m gonna take a beat for a second, and then I’ll decide in the summer or in the fall. But I’m open to it.”
Ballas also reacted to the recent DWTS casting news, particularly that Traitors alums Maura Higgins and Ciara Miller would be joining the cast. (It’s since been announced that Savannah Bananas player Jackson Olson will also be taking the ballroom by storm.)
“She manifested this,” Ballas told Us about Higgins, 35, whom he talked to “a lot” about DWTS while they filmed Traitors season 4, which aired earlier this year.
“I’m so excited to see her doing the show,” he added of the former Love Island star, noting that “the pairings haven’t been done yet” between celebs and their pros.
“I think it’s gonna be great,” Ballas said of the upcoming stars. “They’re both Traitors alums, which it’s gonna be cool for them to connect on.”
Ballas made his DWTS debut during season 5 in 2007. He departed the series after season 22 in 2016. Ballas ended up returning for season 25 in 2017 before taking a years-long hiatus. The dancer made a surprise return to the ballroom for season 31 in 2022 to team up with Charli D’Amelio, with whom he won the competition and took home the Mirrorball Trophy.
Ahead of DWTS season 35, set to air this fall, Ballas will appear on the new reality show Dancing With the Stars: The Next Pro, which is set to air this summer.
“Dancing with the Stars: The Next Pro features 12 exceptional up-and-coming dancers who move into one house and compete in a grueling audition process,” the show’s official logline reads. “[They are] all vying for a coveted spot as a pro dancer on season 35 of Dancing with the Stars.”
Robert Irwin, who won DWTS season 34 in 2025, is set to host. Ballas will be a judge alongside his mother, Shirley Ballas. The mother-son duo will also be joined by a rotating panel of guest judges and mentors.
“For the first time in Dancing with the Stars history, the greatest dancers will compete for a spot as the next pro,” Irwin, 22, said in the show’s trailer, which debuted last month. “This summer, let the fiercest dance battle begin.”
