Rylee Arnold is ready to return to the Dancing With the Stars live tour after taking a break to focus on her health.
“I’m really, really excited to come back,” Arnold, 21, exclusively told Us on Tuesday, October 6, after her participation in the 2026 tour was announced on-air. “It’s a little bit shorter than it was the year before, so I felt like I can manage it with my health and everything.”
Arnold, who has been a pro on DWTS since 2023, opted against performing during the 2025 tour to focus on managing her Type 1 Diabetes. (Arnold was diagnosed at age 15 and has since found it difficult to navigate her condition during a lengthy touring show.)
“I can’t wait to be back and doing it again,” she exclaimed, hoping that partner Connor Wood will join her for select tour dates. “I think we should get him [to join].”
While it’s not known which celebrity contestants will appear on the 2026 tour, Arnold and Wood, 31, are currently heating up the season 35 ballroom. On Tuesday, the dancing duo earned a 19 out of 30 for their sizzling rumba to Mariah Carey’s “Touch My Body,” punctuated with the comedian doing the worm across the floor.
“Rylee had the knee slide [in her choreography], and then I think the one-legged worm is from … a comedy special [I filmed] in June in Florida,” Wood explained to Us. “I visited a male strip club, and the young men there taught me some moves. That was what that was. They were like, ‘It’s not the worm as much as Magic Mike ’cause you can stabilize yourself with your right leg.’ They’re very talented.”
While Wood nailed the adult entertainers’ signature move, it caused an unforeseen wardrobe mishap along the way.
“[The] first time I hit the ground, I was like, ‘Huh, that’s different,’” he said, revealing his silky shirt ripped in the process. “I was wondering if it was, like, my butt or my back ’cause I just heard it. It goes — and I was like, ‘I hope my butt is not out.’ Like, imagine trying to be sexy and, like, your whitey-tighties are showing on TV!”
Arnold, who didn’t notice Wood’s wardrobe malfunction, was instead making sure her dance partner nailed the steps properly.
“I will say this is the first week where [our] banter had leveled out because I didn’t have this choreography done until, like, yesterday,” Wood acknowledged of his friendship with Arnold. “[I had to] get serious. It was very much, like, when you’re in the kitchen with your dad and he’s teaching you math in grade school, and he’s like, ‘2 times 2 is—’ and I’m like, ‘6.’ And he’s like, ‘No, like, what? Don’t you…?’ That’s what it felt like learning the dance.”
Dancing With the Stars airs on ABC and Disney+ Tuesdays at 8 p.m.
