The first group shot of Dancing With the Stars‘ season 28 cast has been revealed.
It displays the show’s 12 famous contestants decked out in black and white and smiling around a velvet couch and armchair.
The series notified fans of the new season’s lineup on August 21.
Gang’s all here! The first group shot of Dancing With the Stars’ season 28 cast has been revealed
Bombshells! From left to right… Supermodel Christie Brinkley and former Bachelorette Hannah Brown
This season’s contestants include James Van Der Beek, Christie Brinkley, Lamar Odom, season 15 Bachelorette Hannah Brown, former Fifth Harmony member Ally Brooke, Queer Eye expert Karamo Brown, The Office’s Kate Flannery, All That alum Kel Mitchell, American Idol runner-up Lauren Alaina, The Supremes member Mary Wilson, former NFL linebacker Ray Lewis and President Donald Trump’s former White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer.
The show has yet to divulge which contestant will be partnered up with which dancer.
Returning professional dancers include Alan Bersten, Brandon Armstrong, Cheryl Burke, Emma Slater, Gleb Savchenko, Jenna Johnson, Keo Motsepe, Lindsay Arnold, Peta Murgatroyd, Sasha Farber, Val Chmerkovskiy and Witney Carson.
Two new professional dancers are also new to the roster this season including married couple and ballroom dancing champs Pasha Pashkov and Daniella Karagach.
Professional dancers Sharna Burgess and Artem Chingvintsev will not be returning for the new season.
Len Goodman, Bruno Tonioli and Carrie Ann Inaba are also coming back to judge the new season.
Movers and shakers: From left to right…All That alum Kel Mitchell and former NFL linebacker Ray Lewis
For the first time in the show’s history, the professional dancers and contestants were revealed separately.
Executive producer Andrew Llinares said of the new move: ‘We wanted to do something a little different this year.’
‘After 27 seasons it’s tough. We want to keep the show fresh for you guys. We just thought it would be kind of fun to to hold off on revealing the partners to the audience until the premiere … I think it’s a fun little twist.’
Llinares went on to unveil another new aspect of the season – live voting.
‘We’ve been off air for a year so we want to make this season really, really special and make it bigger, more exciting and more fun than it’s ever been.
‘One thing we are going to do is introduce live voting on the program this season, which is something we haven’t done before.
‘You’ll see the result at the end of that show based upon what happened that night. ‘
The 28th season is already proving to be a controversial one.
Sean Spicer’s inclusion in the line-up didn’t go down well with co-host Tom Bergeron, who last week tweeted that he had told producers he hoped the new season would be a ‘joyful respite from our exhausting political climate’ and urged them not have any ‘divisive bookings.’
Newbies: Two new professional dancers are also new to the roster this season including married couple and ballroom dancing champs Pasha Pashkov and Daniella Karagach
Axed: Sharna Burgess and Artem Chingvintsev will not return for the new season of DWTS
Producers apparently disagreed. ‘We can agree to disagree, as we do now, but ultimately it’s their call,’ Bergeron wrote.
In a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Spicer stated that he hopes to bring Americans of all different backgrounds together.
‘My hope is that at the end of the season, [host] Tom [Bergeron] looks back on this and realizes what a great example it was of being able to bring people of really diverse backgrounds together to have fun with each other, engage in a real civil and respectful way and maybe show millions of Americans how we can get back to that kind of interaction,’ he stated.
Spicer has already received an endorsement from President Trump, who tweeted last week: ‘Just heard that Sean Spicer will be on ‘Dancing with the Stars.’ He will do great. A terrific person who loves our Country dearly!’
Spicer resigned from his role as White House Press Secretary in July 2017 and has been accused of repeatedly lying for Trump and exaggerating the crowd size at Trump’s inauguration, falsely boasting that it was larger than Barack Obama’s.
The casting was met with bitter backlash online, leading Jon Cooper, the Chairman of the Democratic Coalition, to slam the show as ‘Dancing to Facism’, adding ‘screw you for normalizing Sean Spicer.’
Comedian Dana Goldberg joked: ‘Will he just be dancing around the truth?’
On the show Spicer earn at least $125,000 which could balloon to $295,000 if he makes it far in the competition, according to Variety.
Dancing with the Stars season 28 premieres on ABC Monday, September 16, at 8 p.m. ET.
Returning: Len Goodman, Bruno Tonioli and Carrie Ann Inaba are also coming back to judge the new season
