The "Dancing with the Stars" Season 35 premiere kicked off with a bang last night, Sept. 15, with the first episode of a two-night premiere.
Last night, the eight male celebrities of the cast danced with their pro partners to number one hit songs from the years they were born. The only Floridian celebrity in the cast, Tyler Cameron,
impressed the judges with a Tango, and landed toward the top of the scoreboard.Tonight, Wednesday, Sept. 16, the premiere will continue with the female celebrities taking the dance floor.
Last night's premiere experienced voting issues, likely due to the volume of votes coming through. Online voting was thrown out after crashing after just two dances, with fans forced to vote by text only. At the end of the episode,
it was revealed that the volume of votes more than doubled the votes that came in for last season's premiere episode.
For reference, Season 34 last year was the highest-rated and most-watched season of "Dancing with the Stars" in 10 years. Based on the voter response to last night's premiere episode, this season has potential to become even more popular with the growing fanbase.
Here's who was eliminated on the premiere of "Dancing with the Stars" Season 35, how to watch the second part of the premiere tonight, how to vote and what each contestant scored on night one.
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What time does 'Dancing with Stars' come on? Second episode tonight
The second part of the "Dancing with the Stars" Season 35 premiere will air tonight, Wednesday, Sept. 16, at 8 p.m. ET. New episodes stream the next day on Disney+ and Hulu.
During the first part of the two-episode premiere on Tuesday, Sept. 15, the male celebrity contestants danced to number one hits from the years they were born, and one was eliminated. During tonight's episode, all of the female celebrity contestants will dance. At the end of the night, one more star will be eliminated.
Who was eliminated on 'DWTS' last night? First elimination of Season 35
"Secret Lives of Mormon Wives" star and husband of Season 34 "DWTS" cast member Whitney Leavitt, Connor Leavitt, was eliminated last night with newcomer and "Dancing with the Stars: The Next Pro" winner Adele Zaikman. The 32-year-old finished near the bottom of the judges' leaderboard with 12 total points.
"This has been the most fun. I have the greatest dance partner in the world in Adele," Leavitt said afterward.
'Dancing with the Stars' Season 35 scores: See premiere episode scoreboard
Floridian Tyler Cameron received the third-highest score of the night on the "Dancing with the Stars" Season 35 premiere episode. Cameron and partner Sharna Burgess danced a Tango to Lenny Kravitz's 1993 hit "Are You Gonna Go My Way."
Here are the scores from the first part of the two-night premiere. Each score is out of a possible 30 points:
- Harry Shum Jr. and Jenna Johnson (Cha Cha): 21
- Ezra Frech and Daniella Karagach (Tango): 20
- Tyler Cameron and Sharna Burgess (Tango): 17
- Connor Wood and Rylee Arnold (Cha Cha): 16
- Taylor Hanson and Britt Stewart (Quickstep): 16
- Jackson Olson and Emma Slater (Cha Cha): 15
- Conner Leavitt and Adele Zaikman (Salsa): 12
- Guillermo Rodriguez and Witney Carson (Cha Cha): 10
'Dancing With the Stars' Season 35 cast list: See celebs competing with Floridian Tyler Cameron
Here's the full cast list for Season 35 of "Dancing with the Stars" as of Wednesday, Sept. 16:
- "Summer House" star Ciara Miller will be dancing with Brandon Armstrong.
- "Love Island UK" alum Maura Higgins will be dancing with Mark Ballas.
- Fun fact: Both Maura Higgins and Mark Ballas were on last year's season of "The Traitors" together, so this will not be the first time they've worked together.
- Late night personality and comedian Guillermo Rodriguez will be dancing with newly Floridian Witney Carson.
- Savannah Bananas player Jackson Olson will be dancing with Emma Slater.
- "10 Things I Hate About You" actress Julia Stiles will be dancing with Ezra Sosa.
- "Hanson" singer Taylor Hanson will be dancing with Britt Stewart.
- "Fresh Prince of Bel Air" actress Tatyana Ali will be dancing with Jan Ravnik.
- Paralympian Ezra Frech will dance with Daniella Karagach.
- Reality personality and sister to former "DWTS" cast member Brooks Nader, Sarah Jane Nader, will be dancing with Hailey Bills.
- "Glee" and "Grey's Anatomy" actor Harry Shum Jr. will be dancing with Jenna Johnson.
- Comedian, influencer and podcaster Connor Wood, known online as @fibula, will be dancing with Rylee Arnold.
- Olympic skater Amber Glenn will be dancing with Pasha Pashkov.
- Food Network star Giada De Laurentiis will be dancing with Alan Bersten.
- Floridian "Bachelorette" contestant and reality show personality Tyler Cameron will be dancing with Sharna Burgess.
- "Step Up" actress and dancer Jenna Dewan will be dancing with Val Chmerkovskiy.
How to vote for your 'Dancing with the Stars' Season 35 favorites
Throughout the season, fans can vote for their favorite couples during the live simulcast, which will be broadcast in the EST/CST time zones.
Online voting will be available to fans in any time zone in the U.S., its territories and Canada at dwtsvote.abc.com. Fans with a participating U.S. wireless carrier can also vote via SMS/text; however, this feature is not available for viewers in Canada. To vote for your favorite celebrities, text their first name to 21523 while the show is airing live.
'Dancing with the Stars' online voting crashes during Season 35 live premiere
Online voting crashed during the "Dancing with the Stars" premiere last night, leaving fans with only one way to vote: by text. This means that most fans voting outside of the U.S. were ultimately not able to vote.
After Tyler Cameron's dance, which was only the second dance of the night, host Julianne Hough said she had an announcement coming in live over her ear piece.
"Voting on ABC is currently down live, so please make sure that you are texting (your votes) for everyone," Hough said. "Make sure you vote for them by text."
Online voting remained unavailable for the remainder of the premiere episode, likely due to high traffic overwhelming the website. After Connor Leavitt's dance, which was the third dance of the night, cohosts Julianne Hough and Alfonso Ribeiro provided an update that they would be throwing out online voting entirely for the remainder of the night.
At the end of the episode, Ribeiro announced that the number of votes texted in crushed last year's premiere voting numbers.
"Tonight we had more than double the votes in the last season's premiere, even though we're only counting text votes tonight and there were only eight couples competing tonight," Ribeiro said. "That's amazing news and shows just how much you're engaged with this brilliant cast."
Who won 'Dancing with the Stars' 2025? Florida-based influencer Alix Earle was runner-up
Robert Irwin, wildlife conservationist and son of the late, great Steve Irwin, took home the Len Goodman Mirrorball trophy on the Season 34 live finale of "Dancing with the Stars," on Tuesday, Nov. 25, 2025. He and his partner, Whitney Carson, scored an 89 out of 90 total possible points throughout the night. Irwin's older sister, Bindi Irwin, is also a "DWTS" winner. She claimed the trophy in 2015, at just 17 years old.
Florida-based influencer Alix Earle took second place with partner Val Chmerkovskiy and earned a perfect 90 out of 90 total possible points throughout the night. Earle was the only star to earn a perfect score on all three dance challenges.
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Lianna Norman and Samantha Neely are trending reporters for the USA TODAY NETWORK-Florida, covering pop culture, breaking news and more. You can get all of Florida’s best content directly in your inbox each weekday by signing up for the free newsletter, Florida TODAY, at floridatoday.com/newsletters.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: 'DWTS' sees skyrocket in night 1 votes, despite online voting crash
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