Bobby Bones and Tom Bergeron’s merry dance has come to its end.
After public comments made by Bergeron prompted Bones to return the trophy he earned from winning Dancing With the Starsseason 27, the commemorative prize is officially back in his possession.
Bones posted a photo showing he and the trophy had been reunited, the podcast host gesturing towards the award with a big smile on his face.
He captioned the Aug. 7 post, “Look what just came in the mail.”
While the moment marks the end of Bones’ ongoing drama surrounding his and Sharna Burgess’ Dancing With the Stars win, it also appears to tease that the 46-year-old might just have a future with the program.
After all, lying at the front of the trophy was a small card that read, “Run it back?” with a 35 in the bottom corner, which is the number of the upcoming Dancing With the Starsseason. Neither Bones nor the series, however, have confirmed whether he will be making any sort of return.
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The return of Bones’ trophy comes after he requested it be returned to him after he and Bergeron buried the hatchet over the latter’s comments that Bones’ win was the most shocking during his tenure as host of the ABC series.
“It’d be nice if I could get my Dancing With the Starstrophy back,” Bones said to Us Weekly in an interview published May 26. “I got my feelings hurt. I love Tom, and so, in a haste, I sent my trophy back to somewhere at ABC.”
Though he admitted he didn’t know what had befallen the trophy when he sent it back, he added, “I like that trophy. If anybody’s watching this that has my Mirrorball trophy, please mail it back to me. I would love to have it back.”
And sometimes, wishes do come true.
As for he and Bergeron, the pair had a heart to heart on Bones’ the BobbyCastpodcast.
“I felt terrible,” Bergeron told Bones during the March episode, “that the way I phrased my honest surprise at your win—I think the question to me was, ‘What’s the most shocking elimination that you remember?’ And I couldn’t remember a shocking elimination.”
Eric McCandless/Disney General Entertainment Content
“I wish I had said, ‘Well, this wasn’t a shock, but it was a surprise when Bobby Bones won,'” he added, noting he regretted the comment at large. “The fact that it hurt your feelings, and you sent your trophy back, I felt terrible about that.”
But while the former host’s comment was initially hurtful, it never changed the way Bones felt about Bergeron.
“What’s funny is,” he said, “I’ve now talked about this because so many people have called and asked me about it, but I’ve said it in every interview—I’ve said, ‘I love Tom Bergeron.’ So that’s never changed.”
For a closer look at the competition series ahead of season 35—which has thus far announced Ciara Miller, Maura Higgins and Jackson Olsonas celebrity dancers—read on.
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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.”
