Overview
- Conner Leavitt and his partner Adele Zaikman were eliminated following Night 1 of the premiere, which aired Sept. 15, with judges’ scores combined with live viewer votes to decide the result.
- Hosts and producers announced that ABC’s online voting was down during the Sept. 15 broadcast so the show accepted only SMS votes for that episode and counted those to reach the elimination.
- Season 35 opened as a deliberate two-night, gender-split event with male celebrities on Night 1 and female celebrities scheduled for Night 2, and each night ends with one elimination determined only by votes cast during that evening’s live show.
- The season integrates new pros from the spinoff Dancing With the Stars: The Next Pro — including Adele Zaikman, who debuted this week — and producers are requiring stronger social-media engagement from contestants to drive votes.
- The voting outage highlights a broader operational risk as DWTS pushes cross-platform live broadcasts and real-time online voting, and viewers will watch Night 2 on Sept. 16 to see whether the producers resolve the platform issues and which female couple is eliminated.