‘Dancing With the Stars’ Winner Xochitl Gomez Reflects on Her Journey

Dancing With the Stars Season 32 officially came to an end on Tuesday night with Xochitl Gomez winning the Len Goodman Mirrorball Trophy along with her veteran dance partner Val Chmerkovskiy. (Back in September, the Mirrorball was renamed in honor of Goodman, a longtime judge on the show who died in April.)

The three-hour finale included heartfelt performances from the show’s five remaining finalists: Gomez, Alyson Hannigan, Jason Mraz, Ariana Madix, and Charity Lawson. For the final time, each couple danced twice: a freestyle and a redemption dance, redoing a routine from earlier in the season. In classic DWTS fashion, the contestants were also joined onstage at different points by their cast members who had already been eliminated, including Harry Jowsey, Mira Sorvino, Mauricio Umansky, Lele Pons, and Barry Williams. Coming in second to Gomez and Chmerkovskiy was Jason Mraz and his dance pro, Daniella Karagach. Vanderpump Rules star Madix and her partner, Pasha Pashkov, came in third.

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It’s been a long journey for the DWTS cast members who made it all the way to the finale. If you asked many of them if they thought they’d make it this far back in September when they performed their first dance on live television, they would have never expected this.

For Mirrorball winner Gomez, this experience has been unique from all of the other scripted acting she’s done in shows like Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and Netflix’s The Baby-Sitters Club. Not only was it challenging to do something new and out of her comfort zone, but Gomez is accustomed to playing fictional characters. On Dancing With the Stars, she portrayed herself.

“This project felt different in the sense that I wasn’t having to play a character. I was just being myself,” she tells Rolling Stone. “It kind of brought me back to my experience doing theater. I did a lot of musical theater growing up, youth musical theater. It was very much friends just getting together and messing around, and as much as this show feels like that it’s also very strict.”

In order to be as prepared as possible for the road ahead of her, Gomez says she read Chmerkovskiy’s book I’ll Never Change My Name: An Immigrant’s American Dream from Ukraine to the USA.

“I wanted to do a lot of research into what the show was, what it was like, what other people’s experiences were like,” explains Gomez. “I know a few people like Riker [Lynch] and Justina [Machado], who’ve been on the show and they talk very highly of it. Reading Val’s book, it was very funny, but it also gave me pretty good insights on Dancing With the Stars in general.”

One of the challenges Gomez faced while competing is the filming restrictions she had to adhere to as a 17-year-old on set. She had a mandatory day off, which meant she had one day less than the rest of her cast members to rehearse.

“Being a minor on set is a whole different setup. In a competition show where every minute matters and every chance you get to rehearse matters, you know, that has been a challenge,” Chmerkovskiy tells Rolling Stone about working with Gomez. “But every challenge is an opportunity for something else. Xochitl is an amazing talent, but she’s also a really focused student, so when she goes home on her quote-unquote ‘day off,’ she’s still watching tape, she’s still watching her videos, she’s still going over her stuff, and she comes in ready the next day.”

The lessons Gomez has learned from her time on DWTS are ones that she hopes she can apply to other parts of her life.

“For me, at least in my mind, I always think that I can only do half of what I actually can do,” she says. “I saw that a lot in just this season. I thought that I would only get to week five, I saw that as my goal. So to know that was my goal and I made it so far, I think that shows a lot in just what I’m capable of and hopefully I can carry that on to other parts of life.”

Runner-up Jason Mraz says he didn’t anticipate his DWTS journey to continue for as long as it did. When he signed up to do the show, he says he thought, “I can learn a dance routine. This will be fun.” But what he didn’t expect was the high level of athleticism, intensity, and attention to detail that was required to learn those dance routines.

“I came in with low expectations, and I did not think I would do as well as I’ve done. I thought I could learn a routine, I’ll be on for a couple of weeks, and it’ll be a great experience. But things went really well right out of the gate and I thought, ‘Uh-oh, I’m probably going to be here a while,’” Mraz tells Rolling Stone. “It definitely rocked my world because almost instantly I realized this is way harder than I thought.”

Over time, Mraz saw growth in his performances and abilities based on his hard work during rehearsals. It’s been rewarding for him to look back and see the trajectory from his first dance until his finale performances, which he says has been an important lesson in “practicing a skill and getting better at it.” The work ethic he picked up from his partner Daniella Karagach is something he wants to carry with him into all facets of life, including his career as a music artist.

“When I sit down at a piano or play guitar, now I’m approaching it differently. I could break it down the way we’re breaking down choreography. When we break down choreography, we break down every step. If we took a picture at this moment, what would it look like? And I can now apply that to other things that I do like cooking and playing music,” Mraz says. “Dancing is about intimacy and trust, and I know that my relationships are going to improve. My confidence has improved, my posture and my physique has transformed, and I know I’m going to sprinkle dance into my shows going forward, which has been an element that’s been missing [for me].”

Making it to second place wasn’t a simple feat for Mraz. There were moments throughout the season when he wanted to quit — when he had no days off to recover from feeling sick and when he forgot some of his choreography and was publicly embarrassed — but in hindsight, he’s glad he persevered.

“At times I thought, ‘Oh, my God, just get me out of here. Please. I don’t even know when this show is going to end. I don’t think it ever ends. But I pushed through and I started to do well,” he says. “I’m just so happy that I pushed through and have a chance to have danced in every episode. To me, that’s the win. I walk away with memorable performances for myself and hopefully for some of my fans, and maybe I even made new fans. What a gift that is.”

Actress Alyson Hannigan may have come in fifth on Tuesday night’s finale alongside her assigned dance pro Sasha Farber, but she says regardless of where she placed on this season’s finale episode, Dancing With the Stars was nothing short of a life-changing experience for her. According to Hannigan, her managers had been asking her if she was interested in joining the cast for years, but she was always afraid to commit. When they approached her with a formal offer for Season 32, she says she really sat down and thought about it with some encouragement from her daughters. That’s when she realized she “didn’t have a great reason not to do it.”

“I really asked myself why I was resistant, and it was fear and things that shouldn’t hold me back. I’ve just told myself, ‘I can’t’ my whole life, but have I ever really tried? No,” Hannigan offers. “I’m also a mom of two girls who we encourage to try new things and sports they’ve never played and ask about all the things that they’re experiencing and trying. So I would be very hypocritical if I didn’t do the same. I was sort of like, I’ve got to walk the walk, not just talk the talk.”

Hannigan says not only did she have to learn how to dance, but she had to learn how to learn the choreography in the first place. Since dancing doesn’t come naturally to her, she says she had to work hard not just physically but mentally as well in order to grasp the task at hand. The hard work paid off, she says, because making it to the finale was more than she could’ve hoped for.

“Even though it’s hard for me to admit because it’s not something I’m used to feeling, I’m so impressed with how this has gone for me because of the hard work I put in,” she says. “I really see and feel how it paid off and how beneficial it was, for my experience and my journey.”

One of the components Hannigan appreciates most about DWTS are the relationships she’s been able to cultivate with her fellow cast members, especially those like her who also made it to the finale. According to the American Pie actress, they all have a special bond because of the closeness they’ve shared in such a high pressure and intense environment, specifically referencing her relationship with Madix as one that she holds dear.

“I knew Ariana was just a good, solid person the moment I met her. We were at the meet-and-greet out in New York, and it was the first time you got to meet everybody,” Hannigan says. “Within 30 seconds she was like, ‘Oh, you’ve got some lipstick on your teeth.’ I’m like, ‘You’re a girl’s girl. You’ve got my back.’ It’s such a little thing, but it’s so significant. It’s just incredible how supportive everybody is. It’s such a family.”

Dancing With the Stars has transformed Hannigan’s life, she says, because it’s taught her a number of lessons, including, “Don’t let fear or the negative voices get in the way.” This is something she’s struggled with her whole life, but now she feels free from those negative thoughts and is more willing to confront her fears around failures and mistakes.

“I’m sure I’m not alone in that, but I learned, don’t listen to those [voices], don’t give them the power to hold you back because I did for my entire life. Now I stopped. I made it to the finale, and it’s crazy how I just was never going to do this because I kept telling myself ‘I can’t do that,’ but I never tried,” she says. “This is a TV dance show, and it’s had the most profound effect on my life. I’ve learned lessons that I’ll take forever. I really said they should rename it Therapy With the Stars because it’s been more productive than therapy [for me].”

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