'Dancing with the Stars' annouces remaining cast and professional pairings for Season 21

Dancing with the Stars has officially announced its cast for this fall's 21st season.


During Wednesday's Good Morning America broadcast, all the stars and their pro partners were either revealed or confirmed.

The celebrities who will be competing on the next edition of DWTS are Oscar winning actor Gary Busey; Bindi Irwin, the daughter of the late Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin; Backstreet Boys member Nick Carter; singer Chaka Khan; crooner Andy Grammer; Internet sensation Hayes Grier; triple Crown-winning jockey Victor Espinoza; Spy Kids star Alexa PenaVega and her husband Carlos PenaVega, a singer from Big Time Rush; celebrity chef Paula Deen; Tamar Braxton, a singer, talk show host and sister of the iconic Toni Braxton; Don't Be Tardy and The Real Housewives of Atlanta star Kim Zolciak; and train hero Alek Skarlatos.

The participants just announced are Deen, Braxton, Zolciak and Skarlatos. The other stars were previously released by ABC over the last week or so.

The PenaVegas will be the first married couple to ever compete on the reality dancing competition.


The professional dancers who will be paired up with Season 21's celebrities are Mark Ballas, Allison Holker, Derek Hough, Witney Carson, Keo Motsepe, Anna Trebunskaya, Emma Slater, Tony Dovolani, Sharna Burgess, Louis van Amstel, Val Chmerkovskiy, Karina Smirnoff and Lindsay Arnold.

The pros who were previously revealed are Ballas, Burgess, Carson, Chigvintsev, Chmerkovskiy, Holker, Hough, and Smirnoff. Peta Murgatroyd was supposed to compete on Dancing with the Stars, but she'll have to sit out the season due to a serious ankle injury. Murgatroyd wrote on Twitter she's "devastated" not to be a part of the show.

Below is a list of the celebrity and professional pairings:

Alexa PenaVega will be partnered with Ballas, who is returning for his seventeenth season and has two mirror-ball trophies of his own. He won Season 6 with Kristi Yamaguchi and Season 8 with Shawn Johnson.

Grammer will be paired with Holker, who performed as a pro on the Dancing with the Stars stage two seasons in a row. She finished Season 20 in second place with Riker Lynch.


Irwin will be matched with Hough, a five-time mirrorball trophy champion.

Carlos PenaVega will be paired with Carson. Carson made her Dancing with the Stars debut as a pro for the show's eighteenth season. She won Season 19 with her celebrity partner Alfonso Ribeiro.

Khan will be partnered with Motsepe, who will be appearing on the reality dancing competition for his third season.

Busey will take the dance floor with Trebunskaya, who will be competing on her tenth edition of DWTS. She hasn't been on the show since Season 15 and finished as a runner-up twice in her history on DWTS.

Grier will be matched with Slater, who will be back for her fifth season on Dancing with the Stars. She joined the show for Season 17.


Zolciak will be paired with Dovolani, who will be back for his 20th season. He won Dancing with the Stars' fifteenth season -- which was the show's first-ever all-stars edition -- with Melissa Rycroft.

Carter will be paired with Burgess, who made her debut on Dancing with the Stars' sixteenth season. She made it to Season 18's semifinals with partner Charlie White and finished last season in third place with double amputee Noah Galloway.

Deen will dance with Amstel, who has appeared on nine seasons of the series. The highest he'd placed was third with Kelly Osbourne back in Season 9.

Braxton will practice her moves with Chmerkovskiy, who joined Dancing with the Stars eight seasons ago and will be participating in his ninth edition. He finished as Season 16's runner-up with Zendaya Coleman, claimed third place in Season 19 with Janel Parrish, and then won Season 20 with Rumer Willis.

Espinoza will be matched with Smirnoff, who has competed in 16 seasons of Dancing with the Stars. She won the mirrorball trophy with J.R. Martinez in Season 13.


Skarlatos will be partnered with Arnold, who will be taking the stage as a pro dancer for the second time. She previously served as a pro in Season 16 with celebrity partner Victor Ortiz. They finished in eighth place.

Dancing with the Stars premieres September 14 at 8PM ET/PT on ABC.






About The Author: Elizabeth Kwiatkowski