‘Dancing With the Stars’: Derek Hough Wants All-Winner Season, Names Dream Competitors

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Battle of the Mirrorball Champions? Derek Hough thinks it would be “fantastic” for Dancing With the Stars to hold an all-winner season.

“I think that it’d be a really, really competitive season,” Hough, who’s now a judge on the ABC reality competition after 17 seasons as a pro dancer on the show, tells Variety.

The 38-year-old adds that there have been discussions of an all-winner season behind the scenes at Dancing With the Stars.

Hough even has a list of winners he’d love to see compete again, including Nicole Scherzinger, with whom he won Season 10, and Bindi Irwin, pictured below, with whom he won Season 21.

Disney+

“I think Rashad Jennings would love to come back,” he adds. “Donny Osmond, I know he’d probably love to come back too. Even Jordan Fisher, who was fantastic.”

And what about Season 19 victor Alfonso Ribeiro? “No, not now,” Hough says. “Alfonso’s a host now, so he can’t come back!”

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If an all-winner season transpires, viewers might not see Hough on the dance floor. “I feel like I’ve done that: I really squeezed the juice out of that you, if you will,” he says. “I love being a judge. I never say never because at the end of the day, I love to entertain, I love to perform and if it is something that audiences want to see… Never say never.”

After one season offered exclusively on Disney+, Dancing With the Stars returns to ABC for Season 32 this fall, though Disney+ users will be able to livestream the new episodes. Ribeiro is back as host following Tyra Banks’ departure, and former pro dancer Julianne Hough, Derek’s sister, will co-host the show. So far, only one celebrity dancer has been announced for Season 32: Vanderpump Rules star Ariana Madix.

Dancing With the Stars, Season 32, Fall 2023, ABC