Dancing With the Stars ' Witney Carson says she won't appear in upcoming season: 'I hope it's not goodbye'

Dustin Nelson
·2 min read
Dancing With the Stars ' Witney Carson says she won't appear in upcoming season: 'I hope it's not goodbye'
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Season 32 of Dancing With the Stars will be without one of its twinkle-toed pros.

On Sunday, longtime pro Witney Carson took to TikTok to announce her plans to depart the dance floor.

"This was not a decision that we took lightly at all," Carson said. "We definitely thought and prayed about it for a while, but we will not be doing Dancing With the Stars this season. As much as that pains me to say, I just feel very at peace with it."

Reps for ABC declined to comment on Carson's exit.

Carson rose to fame in 2012 as the ladies' second runner-up on So You Think You Can Dance. She joined Dancing With the Stars shortly after and became a partner dancer in Season 18. In Season 19, she took the mirrorball trophy along with partner Alfonso Ribeiro, who is now a cohost of the show.

"You guys know that family is the most important thing to me, and we just really felt that moving our entire family across the country right now was not for us," she said before noting that one of her children, Leo, is "at an age where he needs consistency and dependability, and he hasn't had that ever since he's been born."

Witney Carson
Witney Carson

Craig Sjodin/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty Images Witney Carson

She added that she hopes to eventually return to the show.

"I will be rooting for everybody on the show. I cannot wait to watch," Carson said. "I'm so excited. I definitely think this is just a break. I hope it's not goodbye. But, for now, we will be their number one cheerleader, watching."

ABC announced last week that The Bachelorette's Charity Lawson will be part of the celebrity cast for the upcoming season, which also includes Vanderpump Rules star Ariana Madix.

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