‘Dancing With the Stars’: All About Rylee Arnold’s Boyfriend & Their Relationship
Rylee Arnold is heating up the ballroom in her fourth season as a pro on Dancing With the Stars. This year, she’s partnered with podcaster/comedian Connor Wood, and, of course, she has the loving support of boyfriend Walker Lyons.
The two are currently navigating a long-distance relationship, with Arnold in Los Angeles for DWTS and Lyons back at school in Utah. “We just FaceTime every single night, we keep each other updated,” she recently told People. “It’s also a real good opportunity to see how you can handle long-distance. It’s a really hard situation to be put in in a relationship, but it also strengthens it so much.”
Below, learn more about Lyons and his relationship with the pro dancer.
Who is Walker Lyons?
Walker Lyons is a college student at Brigham Young University. He is the tight end for the school’s football team.
After high school, Lyons committed to playing college football at Stanford University, but ultimately changed his commitment to USC. Before beginning his college career, he spent 16 months in Norway as part of a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS).
Lyons played at USC for the 2024 and 2025 seasons, then transferred to BYU in January 2026. His decision to enter the transfer portal after the 2025 season was a bit surprising, as he was set to take over as starting tight end in 2026. His brother, Ryder Lyons, joins BYU as quarterback for the 2026 season as well.
How did Rylee Arnold and Walker Lyons meet?
Arnold and Lyons went public with their relationship in October 2024. She revealed how they met on The Squeeze podcast later that year, crediting an Uber driver with making the connection.
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Arnold said she was feeling really “sad and lonely” in Los Angeles and took an Uber to go pick out an outfit for an upcoming appearance. She recalled having a “really nice lady” as her driver. “We’re just, like, talking about dance and she’s talking about what she does,” Arnold explained.
Eventually, the Uber driver told Arnold she had a nephew playing football at USC and believed he and the pro dancer would “really get along.” She urged Arnold to look her nephew up on Instagram and send him a message if she was interested.
“I looked him up, and I was like, ‘OK, he’s cute.’ So at that point, I was like too scared to really do anything about it, and so I was just kind of like put it on my back pocket,” Arnold explained, adding that she wasn’t looking for a relationship at the time and was focusing on Dancing With the Stars instead.
Shortly after the encounter, one of her sisters sent her a TikTok video and suggested she reach out to the guy. “I was like, ‘You guys are gonna die right now. Like, I literally was in his aunt’s Uber a week ago,'” Arnold remembered. “And they’re like, ‘Rylee, like, follow him. Now. Follow him now.’ And then come to know that my brother-in-law is actually friends with his best friend’s dad, and so there’s a connection there.”
The pair ended up having a “crazy amount of” mutual friends. “I followed him first on Instagram, so then he followed me back, and he messaged me, and then got my number, and we text for a while, and then he was like, ‘Can I take you on a date?'” Arnold concluded. “And I was like, ‘Of course you can.’ That’s where it all started.”
Who is Rylee Arnold’s ex-boyfriend?
In high school, Arnold was in a relationship with Truman Burningham. However, they broke up while he was away serving a two-year LDS mission.
They did not get back together when Burningham returned, as Arnold revealed in September 2024 (right before she met Lyons) that she was single.
“I am not back with him,” she told People. “I am currently single right now. [It’s] so fun. I love it. I love being single. It’s the best. I’ve been single for a while, but I love it.”
Dancing With the Stars, Season 35, Tuesdays, 8/7c, ABC and Disney+
