Welcome back! Peta Murgatroyd will officially be part of the Dancing With the Stars season 28 cast after two seasons off.
“I’m overwhelmed with excitement,” Murgatroyd, 33, tells Us Weekly exclusively about her return. “I’m excited and happy to be back with my family. Honestly, I just missed everybody so much! As a lot of people know, it’s such a close and tight-knit family, so I’m just happy to be back with everybody.”
Murgatroyd joined Dancing With the Stars in 2011 and competed for 11 seasons, winning seasons 14 and 22 with partners Donald Driver and Nyle DiMarco, respectively. She married pro dancer Maksim Chmerkovskiy in July 2017. The couple share son Shai, 2. They both decided to step away from the show to focus on being parents. However, she never completely closed that door.
“I definitely wanted this to happen. I hoped that I could make this work for a couple of months now and was praying and hoping that it would all align,” she tells Us. “It was the perfect time for my family. Maks has other things going on and Shai is well taken care of and it was just a good time for us.”
While Chmerkovskiy, who competed for 17 seasons and won season 18 with Meryl Davis, is not returning, he is “fired up” for Murgatroyd to be back. And, maybe one day, he will return too.
“I’m sure he would consider it. I think it just has to line up with what he’s doing and what I’m doing and I feel like he still wants to dance,” she says of her 39-year-old husband. “He’s still fit and healthy!”
While the former Burn the Floor dancer is excited to have Chmerkovskiy and her son cheering her on in the crowd, she admits that competing will be much different without him there.
“I’m totally going to miss dancing with him. That’s a big thing in our lives. We love to dance together,” the New Zealand native says. “I think it’s that comfort level of having your best friend with you. I mean, he’s my everything. It definitely won’t be the same, but there are many people on the show who are like family to me, so it’s not like I’m going to be missing out on any love or kindness!”
The full cast of Dancing With the Stars will be revealed on Good Morning America on Wednesday, August 21.
Dancing With the Stars premieres on ABC Monday, September 16, at 8 p.m. ET.
