ABC's Dancing with the Stars returns Tuesday, Sept. 15, and traders are already forecasting the Season 35 winner as well as the first contestants to will be eliminated.
Giada De Laurentiis leads the Episodes 1 and 2 elimination market at 46%, followed by Taylor Hanson at 27%, Sarah Jane Nader at 26% and Guillermo Rodriguez at 25%.
Meanwhile, Harry Shum Jr. leads Jenna Dewan and Amber Glenn in the Season 35 winner market, at 21%, 19% and 17%, respectively.
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First elimination
De Laurentiis' position atop the market comes after she revealed that she injured her toe during rehearsals.
People Magazine reported that the Food Network star claimed to have “busted” her middle toe during rehearsals with professional dancer Alan Bersten. She also posted a photo of the bruised toe on Instagram.
“So, I had a great day at rehearsals today, but sadly, I busted my toe,” De Laurentiis said in her video.
De Laurentiis had repeatedly turned down invitations to compete on the show. E! News reported that Dancing with the Stars had approached her numerous times about joining the cast.
“Funny enough, Dancing with the Stars has come to me maybe 10 times over the years,” De Laurentiis said in an interview with Bersten. “And I was always like, ‘No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.’”
De Laurentiis said her daughter, Jade, convinced her to accept an invitation for Season 35.
“This time, I thought, with my daughter pushing me and with my daughter out of the house, this is a really good time for me to go on a new adventure and push myself to do something I’ve never done,” she said.
Season 35 winner
Harry Shum Jr. now leads the Season 35 winner market at 21%, edging past The Rookie star Jenna Dewan, who sits at 19%, with Amber Glenn close behind at 17%.
Some fans criticized Dewan's casting after the announcement because of her extensive dance background. Dewan previously worked as a backup dancer for Janet Jackson, Missy Elliott and Christina Aguilera. She also starred in the dance film Step Up and later hosted NBC's World of Dance and served as a judge on Fox's So You Think You Can Dance.
Dewan responded to the criticism, saying that her dance experience does not include ballroom dancing. Longtime Dancing with the Stars judge Carrie Ann Inaba also defended Dewan's inclusion in the competition.
Inaba told Entertainment Weekly that the type of dancing the contestants learn and perform on the show is difficult even for seasoned professionals.
“What’s difficult – and I don’t think people realize this – is when you go from being a jazz dancer or a hip-hop dancer or all the other forms of dancing [to ballroom], the weight placement is so different,” Inaba said. “It’s weird because your body has memory, so it remembers how to dance, and it thinks it already knows how to do these moves, but it doesn’t.”
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