Emma Slaterwill do anything to nail her Dancing With the Stars routines.
That’s why the season 35 pro, who has been part of the show since 2012, had a sense of humor about her entire toenail falling off while rehearsing with her celebrity partner, Savannah Bananas playerJackson Olson.
“There’s a lot of people that want to do Dancing With the Stars, and they want to experience it, but there’s something you should know,” Slater teased while displaying her detached toenail in a Sept. 17 video. “If you do Dancing With the Stars, this could happen.”
“Do you know what this is? This is my toenail,” the season 24 champion continued in her trailer. “It’s not a fake toenail. This is my actual toenail, and I had to peel that off just now because it was flip-flopping like a cat door.”
As such, the U.K. transplant quipped, “You can imagine what my toe looks like without this being on it. It’s not cute.”
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While the 37-year-old isn’t a huge fan of the not-so-pleasant injury, she has said she’s enjoying competing against boyfriend Alan Bersten. Her real-life partner of over a year is the dance expert hoping to lead chef Giada De Laurentiis to victory in the ballroom this year.
“It’s actually really helpful,” Slater exclusively told E! News following the premiere Sept. 15. “We’ll watch each other’s videos, we’ll help each other choreograph, we’ll ask each other’s opinion, and we always come from a really honest, ‘let me help you’ place.”
Indeed, Slater, who was previously married to pro Sasha Farber for six years until finalizing their divorce in 2024, is grateful to have the support of “a team member who knows how to go through this, ’cause this is a crazy world.”
And dancers dedicating their blood, sweat and toenails to learning their routines is only the beginning of the ABC hit’s lore. Read on for a look behind the scenes at the secrets behind Dancing With the Stars.
ABC/Paula Lobo
However, Bobby Bones said he made more than this when he won season 27 with Sharna Burgess in 2018.
“That show pays OK,” the radio personality said on a Sept. 2025 episode of Jason Tartick’s podcast Trading Secrets. “Like, first episode, no money. Second episode, $10,000. I think it’s like, $10,000, $10,000, $20,000, $20,000. It ends up being $50,000 an episode if you last.”
Also receiving a base salary of around $110,000, Bones continued, “I ended up making close to $400,000 from that show.”
ABC has not publicly confirmed any of these figures.
But even if a pro is eliminated in the first round, they’re not leaving the ballroom empty-handed.
“You’re guaranteed until a certain amount of weeks,” Jenna Johnson said on a June 2025 episode of Kelly Stafford and Hank Winchester’s podcast The Morning After. “I think there’s different contracts though. I can’t speak for everybody.”
While Johnson—who won season 26 with Olympic figure skater Adam Rippon, as well as season 33 with The Bachelor’s Joey Graziadei—says the pros don’t get a larger paycheck if they take home what is now called the Len Goodman Mirrorball Trophy, she noted there’s still an incentive to make it to the finale (besides bragging rights, of course).
“If you make it all the way to the end, you’re getting paid the whole season, which is amazing, and you get a bonus on top of that for making it to the finale,” she explained on The Morning After. “If you win, it’s not like you win a $1 million and split it with your partner. You’re just getting a cute trophy together.”
On a 2022 episode of Trading Secrets, Lindsay Arnold recalled how her salary was cut “more than in half” when she was demoted from pro to troupe member.
“You get no say,” Lindsay said on a May 2025 episode of Maggie Sellers’ Hot Smart Rich podcast. “It’s very much just, ‘Here’s your partner. Make it work.'”
In fact, Jenna said the pairing is often a secret until the last minute.
“They really want to keep it a secret until you meet them live,” Jenna said on The Morning After. “They want that genuine reaction. So I think people always think we know who we have and we’re keeping it a secret. Absolutely not. They do not tell us. They really don’t even want us to know the cast. It gets leaked a lot, but they want it very hush-hush until you walk in and meet your partner.”
As for what the Dancing With the Stars team looks for when making these matches?
“It’s based on height, build and personality and compatibility,” former showrunner Rob Wade told E! News in 2015. “We don’t pair people who aren’t going to get on. It’s too intense. It’s not like The Bachelor or something, we couldn’t do that. That would just be miserable experience for the celebrity, for us and the viewer. You don’t want to see two people who don’t like each other and, quite frankly, we have made that mistake pairing people up who didn’t get on so well.”
