How Are Pros and Celebrities Paired Together on Dancing With the Stars?

The pros get little input when it comes to being matched with a celebrity.”You get no say,” Lindsay said on a May 2025 episode of Maggie Sellers’ Hot Smart Rich podcast. “It’s very much just, ‘Here’s your partner. Make it work.'”In fact, Jenna said the pairing is often a secret until the last minute.”They really want to keep it a secret until you meet them live,” Jenna said on The Morning After. “They want that genuine reaction. So I think people always think we know who we have and we’re keeping it a secret. Absolutely not. They do not tell us. They really don’t even want us to know the cast. It gets leaked a lot, but they want it very hush-hush until you walk in and meet your partner.”As for what the Dancing With the Stars team looks for when making these matches?”It’s based on height, build and personality and compatibility,” former showrunner Rob Wade told E! News in 2015. “We don’t pair people who aren’t going to get on. It’s too intense. It’s not like The Bachelor or something, we couldn’t do that. That would just be miserable experience for the celebrity, for us and the viewer. You don’t want to see two people who don’t like each other and, quite frankly, we have made that mistake pairing people up who didn’t get on so well.”