Hailey Bills, the 20-year-old niece of "Dancing With the Stars" pros Jenna Johnson and Val Chmerkovskiy, has been promoted to pro for the show's 35th season, partnered with Sarah Jane Nader. The pairing marks only the second time in the show's history that two women have danced together as partners.
"Man oh man, life has a way - a dream has become reality," Bills wrote on Instagram on September 2. "HERE. WE. GOOOOO!!!!" Johnson, a mirrorball champion, commented underneath, "Actually SOBBING!!!!!!!!!! So proud of you."
Dancing runs in the family. Bills' mother, Stacy Bills, is Johnson's sister and also a dancer. "Her whole side of the family are dancers," Bills said on a July 2025 episode of Mackenzie Couch's "Stop Talking Kenz" podcast. "She did not want me to dance. She was over it. She taught Jenna, she was her director, and then she taught her other sisters. So, she was done with teaching, she was done with the comps, did not want me to dance." Bills added that her mother "always says she was worried because, out of the womb, I was improv-ing."
Early training and competitions
Bills' parents first enrolled her in soccer after the family moved from Utah to Illinois. A recreational dance class in Chicago changed her path. When the family later relocated to Frisco, Texas, when Bills was about 6, she joined the Prodigy Dance and Performing Arts Centre and began competing, eventually being named Mini Female Best Dancer at The Dance Awards in 2017.
The family then moved back to Utah, where Bills shifted her focus to ballroom. In 2018, at age 12, she became a junior pro on "Dancing With the Stars: Juniors."
Her run on DWTS: Juniors
Bills competed alongside 9-year-old Tripp Palin, coached by her aunt Johnson, while her now-uncle Chmerkovskiy served as a judge on the junior spinoff. "We were cut first episode," Bills said on an October 2025 episode of "The Joe Vulpis Podcast." "The drive home with Val was really awkward." She said Chmerkovskiy later took her to dinner and gave her "his whole pep talk," adding, "I know he was sad about it. It was totally fine."
Building a career after elimination
Getting cut from "Juniors" didn't slow Bills down. She kept training at Utah's Center Stage Performing Arts Studio alongside future "Dancing With the Stars" pros Rylee Arnold, who also competed on the junior version of the show, and Ezra Sosa. She went on to win more titles, including Teen Female Best Dancer in 2022.
After graduating high school in 2024, Bills enrolled at Brigham Young University and joined its dance team, the BYU Cougarettes, before leaving later that year to perform on Derek Hough's tour.
From troupe member to pro
In 2025, Bills got the call to join "Dancing With the Stars" season 34 as a troupe member. "There wasn't any sort of audition process at least for me on my end," she said on "The Joe Vulpis Podcast." "I was just trying to post on social media a lot, keep in my training, and just make it clear that that's what I wanted to do. It was a goal, and I'm so grateful it worked out."
Johnson and Chmerkovskiy delivered the news themselves. "POV: It's 2am in Paris and you find out that you and your niece are going to share the stage on DWTS this season!!!!!!" Johnson wrote on Instagram last September. "So beyond proud of you @hailey.bills. You are beyond deserving of this moment. Can't wait for the world to see you SHINE."
Bills said her bond with her aunt and uncle extends well beyond the ballroom. "We are best friends," she said. "Every single night, we'll either do a movie night or we'll sit in the kitchen and just talk for three hours and just make TikToks."
After season 34 wrapped, Bills joined Johnson, Chmerkovskiy and other pros on the "Dancing With the Stars" tour. In September, she was officially cast as a pro for season 35. "It's been a pleasure to watch everything fall into place," she said on the podcast, reflecting on her journey. "It's just been absolutely insane. Sometimes I'll just be like, 'Holy crap, this is my life. Like, what the heck?'"
Season 35 cast
Bills makes her debut as a "Dancing With the Stars" pro when season 35 premieres September 15 at 8 p.m. ET on ABC. Alongside her and Nader, the new season pairs Julia Stiles with Ezra Sosa, Giada De Laurentiis with Alan Bersten, Harry Shum Jr. with Jenna Johnson, Taylor Hanson with Britt Stewart, Tatyana Ali with Jan Ravnik, Jenna Dewan with Val Chmerkovskiy, Amber Glenn with Pasha Pashkov and Ezra Frech with Daniella Karagach.
Also competing are Connor Wood with Rylee Arnold, Conner Leavitt with Adele Zaikman, Tyler Cameron with Sharna Burgess, Jackson Olson with Emma Slater, Guillermo Rodriguez with Witney Carson, Ciara Miller with Brandon Armstrong and Maura Higgins with Mark Ballas.
Miller told E! News in June that she was preparing to compete despite her nerves: "Looks are not indicative of being in shape. I do huff and puff going up the stairs, so I gotta get back into the gym and work on my stamina." Higgins told E! News in May that she had manifested her spot on the show through a vision board she redoes every year, adding that she added five more "Dancing With the Stars" images to this year's board after already having it on last year's.
