summer house

Ciara Miller and Maura Higgins will be among the stars competing for the Mirrorball Trophy.

“Summer House’s” Miller and “The Traitors” contestant Higgins — both publicly betrayed by men they trusted on their shows — are the first celebrities joining Season 35 of “Dancing With the Stars.” Disney announced the new season Wednesday during Hulu’s Get Real House event in Los Angeles.

Miller joins the cast less than a month after it was revealed that her “Summer House” castmate and ex-boyfriend, West Wilson, was dating her friend on the show, Amanda Batula. She teased her “DWTS” news with an Instagram video in which she wrote out her “Next Chapter 2026” to-do list, which included “prioritizing” herself, “taking risks” and “Dancing With the Stars.”

Higgins, who lost Season 4 of “The Traitors” in the finale after being blindsided by her friend and co-star Rob Rausch, rose to prominence on “Love Island” in 2019. Higgins shared her excitement in a video on Instagram, saying, “Please pray for me.”

“Get me on that dance floor. I want to win the trophy,” Higgins said. “I’ve manifested this.”

Higgins told reporters at the Get Real House event that Mark Ballas is her dream partner.

The announcement comes after a landmark season of “DWTS,” which saw a record-breaking number of fan votes. In November, The Times spoke with “DWTS” showrunner Conrad Green, who attributed the ratings spike to reviving “communal viewing experiences.”

“It’s been largely a question of keeping our existing audience and then finding a new audience of 18- to 30-year-olds. That’s partly fed by social media. It’s partly fed by a desire to have communal TV viewing experiences,” Green said. “That was something everyone had with ‘American Idol’ and ‘Dancing With the Stars’ 20 years ago, but TV doesn’t lend itself to that so much anymore.”

During the event, Disney also announced a new spinoff series, “Dancing With the Stars: The Next Pro.” “DWTS” Season 34 winner Robert Irwin will host the show. According to the synopsis, it “features 12 exceptional up-and-coming dancers who move into one house and compete in a grueling audition process, all vying for a coveted spot as a pro dancer on Season 35 of ‘Dancing with the Stars.’”

“DWTS” pro and three-time Mirrorball champion Ballas will host the show alongside his mother, former ballroom dancer Shirley Ballas. The series will premiere July 13 on ABC.

Amanda Batula and West Wilson weren’t being coy — not “purposely” anyway.

The stars of the Bravo reality series “Summer House” — where a group of friends spend their summer weekends in the Hamptons and drama ensues — were just letting the romance percolate. And now they’re making it official.

The pair shared statements on their Instagram stories that they “wanted to provide some clarity” as rumors swirled about their status.

“It was never our intention to purposely hide anything. Given the complicated relationship dynamics involved and the scrutiny that comes with being on a reality show, we need a little space to process things privately before speaking on it,” the couple wrote. “We’ve shown up for each other as friends over the years, through all the highs and lows, and what’s developed recently was the last thing either of us expected.”

Over the course of the series, which debuted in 2017, relationships have become intertwined.

Wilson dated fellow “Summer House” co-star Ciara Miller, a close friend of Batula, in 2023.

And Batula was married to series co-star Kyle Cooke. In January, she announced their split, writing on an Instagram story that the couple had decided to “mutually and amicably” end their relationship. They married in 2021 and documented their struggles on “Summer House,” including when Cooke cheated on Batula in 2019, and spent the night at a fan’s apartment in 2025.

The pair explained that they chose to wait to publicly announce their relationship “to take time to understand” what they felt.

“Our connection grew out of a genuine, long-standing friendship, which made it especially important for us to approach this with care,” they wrote. “We also recognize that this has had an impact beyond just us and never wanted our actions to cause any hurt or be perceived as careless.”

Wilson previously insisted that Batula was just his “home girl” on an episode of “Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen.”

“We were just hanging out in New York. She’s single, I gotta show her the streets a little bit,” Wilson said on Friday. “But if it’s not clear, that’s a very important person to me, and I care about her a lot.”

While on “Watch What Happens” in early March, Cooke said he found the rumors about Batula and Wilson “ outrageous,” and that he didn’t think “there’s any merit to it.” Although he denied the rumors, he still voiced his support for Batula.

“It would certainly catch me by surprise and feel a little reckless. And I think I’d probably be the last person people would be worried about,” Cooke said. “But if it made Amanda happy, I think I just would have to vote ‘yay.’”