• Jackson Olson, second baseman for the Savannah Bananas, has been cast on Dancing With the Stars Season 35.
• The announcement was made during Disney’s Upfront presentation on Tuesday.
• Olson joins previously announced contestants Maura Higgins and Ciara Miller as the third celebrity revealed.
• Fans suspected the casting after DWTS judge Derek Hough tossed Olson a mini Mirrorball at a Bananas game in March.
• His casting is part of a larger Disney-Savannah Bananas partnership that includes the Banana Bowl streaming live on Disney+ this October.

Jackson Olson is trading the baseball diamond for the ballroom. The Savannah Bananas second baseman and social media star has been officially cast on Dancing With the Stars Season 35, Disney announced Tuesday during its Upfront presentation — and honestly, fans had already figured it out.

Olson becomes the third celebrity confirmed for the upcoming season, joining The Traitors and Love Island breakout Maura Higgins and Summer House fan favorite Ciara Miller. The full cast of celebrities and their professional dance partners will be revealed on September 2, exclusively on Good Morning America.

The Clues Were There All Along

In the weeks before the announcement, eagle-eyed fans were already connecting the dots. Olson posted a TikTok of himself dancing on the baseball field, with text over the video reading, “Jackson when can you share the secret you’ve been keeping from us?” He captioned it simply: “You’ll find out soon! 😅 #secret #baseball.” Sharp-eyed viewers immediately spotted a disco ball tucked on the fence behind him. “Yall it’s a mirrorball!!” one commenter wrote. Another added, “Guess I’m going to watch DWTS now 😏.”

The speculation went even deeper than that. Back in March, DWTS judge Derek Hough performed alongside Olson at a Savannah Bananas game — and in a video of the performance shared to Instagram, Hough tossed Olson a mini Mirrorball. The comment section basically solved the mystery on the spot: “OMG…Jackson is about to be on DWTS.”

From the Diamondbacks to the Bananas to the Ballroom

Olson’s road to this moment has been anything but a straight line. He turned down an offer from the Arizona Diamondbacks to finish his college degree, then transferred from the University of Hartford to Stetson University after the MLB draft was shortened during the pandemic. When his college career ended, he thought that was it for baseball.

“I thought I was done with baseball after my career at Stetson University,” Olson told People in 2023. “Mentally, I kind of fell out of love with the game. And the Bananas brought that back.”

He rebuilt his relationship with the sport through content creation — sharing baseball insights alongside stories about food, family, and relationships — and built a following of more than 2 million on TikTok in the process. That online presence eventually caught the attention of Savannah Bananas owner Jesse Cole, and Olson earned a spot on the roster of the Georgia-based team known for turning every game into a full-on entertainment spectacle. Think choreographed dances to Taylor Swift and Mariah Carey, comedy sketches, and Broadway-level showmanship from first pitch to final out. His teammate Derek Klena, of Broadway fame, is right there alongside him.

In other words: this is not a man who has never danced in front of a crowd.

A Big Disney Moment — On and Off the Field

Olson’s DWTS casting is just one piece of a much bigger announcement. Disney revealed an expanded partnership with the Savannah Bananas at the same Upfront event, making Disney+ the exclusive U.S. home of the Banana Bowl — the league’s championship game — streaming live this October. ESPN, Disney+, and the Bananas have also launched a 25-game exclusive package, with every game streaming on the ESPN App and Disney+, and select matchups airing across ESPN networks and ABC.

For the show itself, the momentum couldn’t be better. Season 34 — hosted by Alfonso Ribeiro and Julianne Hough, with judges Carrie Ann Inaba, Bruno Tonioli, and Derek Hough — finished as the No. 1 entertainment series among adults 18-49 for the second year running. Ratings in the key broadcast demo grew nearly 80% year-over-year. The finale alone pulled in 72 million votes, with nearly half a billion cast across the entire season. Robert Irwin and Witney Carson took home the Mirrorball that year.

ABC SVP of content strategy Ari Goldman made clear the network plans to keep pushing on the social media front that helped drive that growth. “The team has innovated immensely in the social media space, both from a casting perspective and a lot of the social and marketing tactics involved with the show,” Goldman told TheWrap. “I think you’re going to see the same type of approach this season.”

Casting someone with 2 million TikTok followers who already dances at work every day? That tracks.

Life Off the Field Is Pretty Good Too

Olson has been making headlines beyond baseball lately, thanks to his relationship with Maggie Sajak — yes, daughter of Wheel of Fortune legend Pat Sajak. The two went public in April, and Olson has been refreshingly open about making it work across the miles.

“It’s really cool because we’re obviously living very different lives right now on the opposite side of the country, but we’re able to come together and just have an awesome relationship,” he told Us Weekly earlier this month. “I feel like in any relationship, you’re trying to figure out how to see each other as frequently as possible, which is never something that I thought in my past I was going to want to do… but now I really do.”

The full Season 35 cast drops September 2 on Good Morning America. Until then, that mini Mirrorball Derek Hough tossed him back in March is looking more and more like a prophecy.

The post Savannah Bananas’ Jackson Olson Joins DWTS Season 35 appeared first on Cream.

• Jackson Olson, internet personality and Savannah Bananas baseball player, is the third confirmed cast member for DWTS Season 35.
• Maura Higgins (The Traitors/Love Island) and Ciara Miller (Summer House) were the first two stars announced.
• The full cast and pro partners will be revealed on Good Morning America on September 2, 2026.
• DWTS Season 35 airs Tuesdays at 8/7c on ABC — and no, the results show is not coming back.
• A companion spinoff, Dancing With the Stars: The Next Pro, is also coming this summer.

Dancing With the Stars is slowly but surely building out its Season 35 ballroom, and the third confirmed cast member is someone you might already be following online. Jackson Olson — internet personality and baseball player for the viral Savannah Bananas — was revealed at the Disney Upfronts on May 12, joining a cast that’s shaping up to be one of the more reality-and-internet-savvy lineups in the show’s history.

Olson joins Ciara Miller of Summer House and Maura Higgins — the Irish fan favorite who became a breakout star on both Love Island and The Traitors — as the first three celebrities confirmed for the fall season. All three had massive moments in 2025, which makes their casting feel less like a coincidence and more like executive producer and casting head Deena Katz knew exactly what she was doing.

Higgins, for her part, is fully ready to put in the work. “I know it’s going to be so, so hard, but because I really want to do it I’m going to put my all into it,” she said. “I’m just so excited. I just want to get going now, to be honest.”

@thesun

Maura Higgins’ strong reaction to discovering she was being betrayed on The Traitors US has been branded as ‘iconic’. Tap the link above for the full story. #traitors #traitorsus #maurahiggins #thetraitors #thetraitorsus

♬ original sound – The Sun

The Full Cast Reveal Is Coming September 2

The rest of the celebrity lineup — along with which professional dancers will be paired with whom — won’t be officially unveiled until the September 2 episode of Good Morning America. In the meantime, Just Jared reports that several additional celebrities are rumored for the season, a few have confirmed they were approached, and at least one has publicly shot down the reports linking her to the show. The rumor mill, as always, is very much running.

What’s new this cycle is the addition of a companion series: Dancing With the Stars: The Next Pro, set to air this summer, where a group of dancers will compete for a spot on the pro cast. Showrunner Conrad Green told The Hollywood Reporter that the winner has already been determined — “secretly in the bank,” as he put it — and explained what the spinoff revealed about what it actually takes to be a DWTS pro.

“Just being a good ballroom or Latin dancer is the basics,” Green said. “But you have to be able to do group dancing, choreograph, manage difficult people, manage time pressure, format a dance and choreograph for a one-minute routine that’s got moments that might get picked up on social media that might make your couple pop.”

Tuesday Nights, No Results Show, Same Three Judges

ABC confirmed at the Upfronts that DWTS Season 35 will air Tuesdays from 8/7c to 10/9c. No specific premiere date has been set, but the show typically returns in mid-September, so a September 2026 kickoff is the safe bet.

One thing that won’t be returning: the results show. During Season 34, Tom Bergeron came back as a guest judge and publicly urged ABC to bring back the two-night format, citing record ratings and arguing that the old overnight voting window gave the show a different energy. ABC isn’t biting — with only one night of DWTS on the schedule, the results show stays gone.

The judging panel, at least, remains unchanged. Carrie Ann Inaba, Derek Hough, and Bruno Tonioli are all back. Inaba and Tonioli have been judging since the very first season in 2005; Hough joined later during Len Goodman‘s tenure, and has remained a fixture since Goodman’s passing in April 2023. Guest judges will likely pop up throughout the season as well, though those names are typically kept under wraps until just before their episodes air.

For now, all eyes are on September 2 — and whatever names Deena Katz has been quietly assembling for what is, after all, a landmark 35th season.

The post DWTS Season 35: Three Cast Members Confirmed So Far appeared first on Cream.

• ABC is holding High Potential Season 3 for a 2027 midseason debut rather than its usual fall premiere
• R.J. Decker takes over the Tuesday 10 p.m. slot behind Dancing With the Stars
• The Scrubs revival gets a fast-tracked fall return, leading off Wednesday nights
• ABC has renewed every scripted series on its roster — a first in the network’s history going back to 1948
• No Bachelor franchise show will air this fall for the first time since the 2019-20 season

ABC’s No. 1 show isn’t coming back this fall — and the network is completely fine with that.

The Alphabet unveiled its fall 2026 schedule on Tuesday, May 12, and the biggest story isn’t what’s on it. It’s what’s missing. High Potential, the Kaitlin Olson-led procedural that has been ABC’s signature primetime hit and the No. 1 broadcast entertainment series of the season in adults 18-49, will not be returning until midseason — meaning viewers won’t see Season 3 until 2027.

In its place on Tuesdays at 10 p.m. will be R.J. Decker, the Scott Speedman crime drama that narrowly avoided cancellation before earning a Season 2 renewal. The show will air behind Dancing With the Stars, which continues to dominate Tuesday nights and soared nearly 80% in the demo last season.

Why ABC Is Keeping Its Biggest Show on the Bench

The decision to hold High Potential wasn’t made lightly, and ABC’s senior VP of content strategy and scheduling Ari Goldman spent a lot of time explaining it.

“The ‘High Potential’ move to midseason is one that’s really born out of the success that we’ve proven over the last couple of years with ‘Will Trent,’ ‘The Rookie’ and the uninterrupted runs that we’ve enjoyed starting in that January timeframe going through the end of the season,” Goldman told reporters. “We’re thinking about the behavior of our linear audience, but also the streaming viewers, who really have shown the importance of week-over-week steadiness in planning and rolling out these shows. We do not take lightly the move of ‘High Potential’ to midseason, but I think this is a real opportunity to bridge through to the end of the year, to keep an uninterrupted run of episodes.”

Goldman also pointed out that the show’s previous two seasons have dealt with scheduling choppiness. “We’ve had to take a number of breaks the first couple seasons with ‘High Potential,'” he said. “Season one, it had more to do with a short first season order. Season two, it had the ‘Dancing With the Stars’ lead-in in the fall, and then get into holiday programming and it just gets a little bit choppy after that. So we’re thrilled to be able to bring it back with much more attention.”

The strategy also lets ABC lean into an extraordinary stretch of live events in early 2027. The network will broadcast the College Football Playoff championship game, the Super Bowl (its first in 21 years), the relocated Grammy Awards, and the Oscars — all in the first quarter of the year. Goldman called it “the most formidable block of live events that’s ever been assembled on broadcast television,” and sees each as a marketing opportunity to reintroduce audiences to ABC’s entertainment slate.

And yes — a High Potential Super Bowl lead-out seems like an obvious play. Goldman wouldn’t confirm it, but he wasn’t exactly subtle: “I can tell you, we are very excited for the opportunity, and we are very clearly focused on an ABC Entertainment series that will air after Super Bowl.”

As for episode count, that’s still up in the air. Season 2 ran 18 episodes, and Goldman said only that “we’re still looking at a really full season for ‘High Potential.'” He also confirmed the show has new showrunners in Nora and Lilla Zuckerman — the delay, he stressed, is about scheduling strategy, not creative concerns. “With ‘High Potential’ and the really dominant success that it’s enjoyed, we have no real concern about the audience not making the journey over to midseason to follow the show,” Goldman told TheWrap.

Fans, though, are doing the math: that’s at least seven months without their favorite show on the air.

What’s Actually on the Fall Schedule

Outside of the High Potential move, ABC is playing it steady. The network renewed every single scripted series it carries — Goldman confirmed it’s the first time in ABC’s history, dating back to the network’s founding in 1948, that every scripted show has been picked up. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” he said simply.

The biggest winner in the shuffle is the Scrubs revival, which is coming back fast after a strong spring debut. It was the No. 1 new comedy on a multiplatform basis and the No. 1 comedy in adults 18-49 on linear this season — and ABC is wasting no time capitalizing. Scrubs will lead off Wednesday nights at 8 p.m., rolling into Abbott Elementary at 8:30 (confirmed for a now-rare 22-episode Season 6 order), followed by Celebrity Jeopardy! and Shark Tank. Goldman said of the Scrubs premiere: “We did have the highest-rated comedy telecast on any network all season with that premiere. It was a big event for us and really brought a lot of attention back to ABC Wednesdays.”

Thursday nights stay exactly as they were — 9-1-1 at 8, 9-1-1: Nashville at 9, and Grey’s Anatomy at 10. None of those shows are lighting up the overnight ratings, but all three perform well in delayed viewing. Goldman noted episode counts for Thursday shows are still being discussed, though he described any adjustments as “nothing particularly austere.”

The full fall lineup breaks down like this:

Monday: ESPN’s Monday Night Football (simulcast with ESPN)
Tuesday: Dancing With the Stars (8 p.m.), R.J. Decker (10 p.m.)
Wednesday: Scrubs (8 p.m.), Abbott Elementary (8:30 p.m.), Celebrity Jeopardy! (9 p.m.), Shark Tank (10 p.m.)
Thursday: 9-1-1 (8 p.m.), 9-1-1: Nashville (9 p.m.), Grey’s Anatomy (10 p.m.)
Friday: Celebrity Wheel of Fortune (8 p.m.), 20/20 (9 p.m.)
Saturday: College Football (7:30 p.m.)
Sunday: America’s Funniest Home Videos (7 p.m.), The Wonderful World of Disney (8 p.m.) — kicking off with the TV premiere of Inside Out 2

What’s Waiting in the Wings for 2027

The midseason bench is deep. Joining High Potential in the 2027 lineup are The Rookie (which just logged its most-streamed season premiere ever with Season 8), Will Trent, Shifting Gears, The Bachelor, and Bachelor in Paradise. For the first time since the 2019-20 season, no Bachelor franchise show will air in the fall — a notable absence driven in part by the ongoing uncertainty around the unaired season of The Bachelorette starring Taylor Frankie Paul.

“‘The Bachelorette’ dynamic right now is one that we were just approaching day by day,” Goldman said. “This is real life, and we want to make sure we don’t rush into any determination in either direction.”

The most anticipated midseason addition is The Rookie: North, the newest spinoff in the franchise, starring Jay Ellis. The series follows Alex Holland, a man whose midlife wasn’t exactly screaming for a crisis — until a violent home invasion reignites something in him and sends him to the Pierce County Police Department as a rookie. The show also stars Janet Montgomery, Karen Fukuhara, Chris Sullivan, Froy Gutierrez, Mya Lowe, and Malik Watson, with franchise creator Alexi Hawley and Nathan Fillion among the executive producers. Goldman all but confirmed it will be paired with The Rookie mothership when both return: “It is simply a rule of audience flow that shows and their spinoffs will have higher compatibility than other pairings.”

As for Dancing With the Stars, Goldman is bullish heading into the new season. The show is adding Summer House‘s Ciara Miller and The Traitors star Maura Higgins to its cast, and the team has been aggressive on TikTok and across social platforms. “The margin now between ‘Dancing with the Stars’ and the nearest entertainment titles just continues to grow and grow,” he said.

Disney Television Group president Craig Erwich framed the whole thing as a network operating from a rare position of security: “We enter this fall season from a position of undeniable strength. Our focus has always been simple: Make the best shows on television and get them to audiences however they want to watch.”

For High Potential fans, that strength might feel cold comfort when their show isn’t back until January. But if Goldman’s plan works — an uninterrupted run backed by Super Bowl-level promotion — the wait could set up Season 3 to be bigger than ever.

The post ABC Benches ‘High Potential’ Until 2027 in Bold Fall Move appeared first on Cream.

• Robert Irwin, 22, revealed he was “death-rolled” by a 14-foot crocodile he named Jimmy Fallon as a baby
• He appeared on The Tonight Show to share the story — directly with the man the croc is named after
• The research technique of jumping on crocodiles was developed by his late father, Steve Irwin
• Robert also discussed his Dancing With the Stars win with partner Witney Carson during the appearance

Robert Irwin has stared down a lot of wild animals in his 22 years, but nothing quite prepared him for the moment a 700-pound crocodile — one he personally named Jimmy Fallon — pinned him to the ground and tried to spin him into oblivion.

The conservationist and Dancing With the Stars winner stopped by The Tonight Show this week and told the story directly to the man the croc is named after. The look on Fallon’s face? Priceless. The story itself? Genuinely terrifying.

“He’s not a baby anymore. I named this crocodile Jimmy Fallon, like, years ago, and he’s now what we call a boss croc. He’s huge,” Robert told the host. The reason he was jumping on a 14-foot crocodile in the first place, he explained, is science — specifically, the kind of hands-on wildlife research his father pioneered. “Because we research crocodiles in the wild to, like, better conserve them, right? So the way you do that — my dad came up with this — is you actually have to jump on them.”

What a Death Roll Actually Means

So Robert jumped. And Jimmy Fallon — the crocodile — did not appreciate it.

“I jumped onto him. I kid you not, 14 foot of crocodile, big croc, death rolls me,” he said. For the uninitiated: a death roll is when a crocodile clamps its jaws on prey and spins its entire body lengthwise with force. It’s how they dismember things. It is not something you want to be on the receiving end of.

“So I’m stuck underneath him with my arm hanging out. I’ve got like, probably — I don’t know — 700 pounds on top of me. And I’m just like, ‘What do I do?’ And luckily he rolled back the other way, and I was fine. But he’s a goer.”

A goer. Classic Robert Irwin.

His Dad’s Legacy, Carried Forward

The fact that Robert is out in the field jumping on crocodiles at all is a direct line back to Steve Irwin, the beloved Crocodile Hunter who died in September 2006 when a stingray’s barb pierced his heart while he was filming a documentary on the Great Barrier Reef. Robert was just 2 years old. His sister Bindi was 8.

In the years since, Robert, Bindi, and their mother Terri have kept Steve’s mission alive — running Australia Zoo in Queensland and continuing his conservation work with the same fearless energy he was known for. Robert has been open about what that means to him. “To continue this legacy is the honour of my life,” he wrote on Instagram last October, alongside footage of himself as a child with his father. “If I can make my dad proud, I’ve done my job. Behind everything I do is a conservation mission that my dad started.”

That same drive carried him into the ballroom last fall, when Robert competed on — and won — Dancing With the Stars Season 34 alongside partner Witney Carson. His sister Bindi had won the show back in 2015, making them the only siblings to both take home the mirrorball. During his Tonight Show appearance, Robert also touched on a performance he dedicated to his mom, a moment that clearly meant as much to him as any wildlife encounter.

“Coming over from Australia, I didn’t know how it would go. I didn’t think I’d make it this far, because I didn’t realize how incredibly supportive America would be,” he told Men’s Health in December 2025. “It’s impossible to put into words how much that has meant to me, because what I represent is so much more than just a dance.”

“When I step into the ballroom, I’m representing a legacy that my dad created with my mom. I’m representing everything I stand for, not only as a wildlife conservationist, but also as someone who is working really hard to try and spread some positivity and passion. I want to be a role model for young people.”

And also, apparently, a role model for surviving death rolls from 14-foot crocodiles named after late-night hosts. Jimmy Fallon — the human one — seemed very pleased to have a croc named after him. Even if that croc did try to eat Steve Irwin’s son.

The post Robert Irwin Got Death-Rolled by a 14-Ft. Croc Named Jimmy Fallon appeared first on Cream.

• Julianne Hough shared an extensive photo and video slideshow from her Fiji vacation on Instagram
• The 37-year-old wore multiple bikinis including leopard-print, snakeskin, and bright red styles
• She showed off acrobatic trampoline skills, went snorkeling, and took an ice bath on the trip
• The getaway follows her film comeback in Maggie Gyllenhaal’s The Bride alongside Penelope Cruz and Christian Bale
• Hough is set to return as Dancing with the Stars co-host this fall for Season 35

Julianne Hough is making Fiji look very, very good right now. The Dancing with the Stars co-host dropped a sweeping Instagram slideshow on Tuesday that gave fans a full tour of her South Pacific getaway — and it involved multiple bikinis, underwater adventures, and some seriously impressive trampoline work.

“Fiji Dreams,” she captioned the post, setting the whole thing to The Cranberries’ classic “Dreams.” Honestly, the song choice alone deserves credit.

The 37-year-old kicked things off in a leopard-print string bikini, draped in a sheer black cover-up and oversized brown sunglasses, dancing in her seat as a boat cut across the waves with a friend alongside her. From there, the looks kept coming — a snakeskin-print bikini for a dockside photo, a bright red string bikini for a snorkeling outing where she posed with a group of friends on the edge of the boat, and a nude triangle top with black bottoms for the moment that might’ve gotten the most attention.

Flips, Floats, and an Ice Bath

That last look was what she wore on the trampoline — surrounded by palm trees, the Emmy Award winner launched herself into the air and ran through a full routine of frontflips and backflips before sitting down, shrugging, and smiling at the camera like it was nothing. Which, for a two-time Mirrorball winner and professional dancer, it probably was.

The snorkeling footage was its own highlight reel. In one clip, Hough swam underwater from behind, then turned and floated on her back before sinking down to rest on the ocean floor. In another, she climbed back onto the boat after the excursion — wet hair slicked back, snorkeling gear in hand — flashed a huge smile, and finished with a wink.

She also took an ice bath on a wooden deck overlooking lush tropical greenery, wearing a black bikini as she walked across the deck, plunged backward into the cold water, and then pulled herself out grinning. Recovery has never looked this scenic.

The rest of the slideshow filled in the quieter moments — a brown bikini on a shaded porch overlooking the ocean, a black swimsuit on the beach with her face tilted toward the sky, a white one-piece for a stroll along the sand, and one golden-hour shot of her standing at the shoreline at sunset that looked like it belonged on a travel magazine cover.

This wasn’t the first wave of content from the trip, either. Hough had already shared an earlier set of vacation photos, including one where she stood facing away from the camera beneath swaying palm trees — her toned physique front and center — and another where she walked the shoreline carrying a bright red surfboard, pairing a long-sleeve top with bikini bottoms while apparently taking on her first surf lessons.

What She’s Coming Back To

The vacation is a well-earned break by any measure. Earlier this year, Hough made her return to acting in The Bride, Maggie Gyllenhaal’s directorial debut, appearing alongside Penelope Cruz, Christian Bale, and Jessie Buckley in a film that dropped in March. It marked a significant step back into the film world for the Utah native, who’s spent much of the past few years in the TV space.

Come fall, she’ll be back on the ballroom floor — figuratively speaking — returning as co-host of Dancing with the Stars alongside Alfonso Ribeiro for the show’s 35th season.

But for now? Fiji, The Cranberries, and a leopard-print bikini. She’s earned it.

The post Julianne Hough’s Fiji Vacation Looks Absolutely Dreamy appeared first on Cream.