Dancing with the Stars: The Next Pro crowns its winner tonight, August 31, 2026 — and the prize is real and specific: a professional dancer contract on Season 35 of the flagship Dancing with the Stars this fall. Three finalists made it through: Selena Hamilton, AJ Pritchard, and Adele Zaikman. Here’s who they are, how they got here, and what’s actually happening at tonight’s finale.
How They Got to the Final Three
The semifinal cut came down to a close call. Allen Genkin, who’d delivered what judge Mark Ballas called one of his favorite jives of the entire season (danced with DWTS pro Witney Carson), was eliminated at that stage anyway. Judge Shirley Ballas explained the decision came down to Genkin having “ever so slightly underperformed” relative to the other three — not a single bad performance, but a pattern of quieter weaknesses around confidence and making the choreography read as fully television-ready, which became more damaging once Pritchard, Zaikman, and Hamilton had each delivered performances the judges could point to directly as finale-worthy.
Adele Zaikman: The Judges’ Consistent Favorite
Zaikman is a competitive professional dancer specializing in Latin styles and a Blackpool Dance Festival winner — one of the most prestigious titles in competitive ballroom and Latin dance internationally. What sets her run on the show apart statistically: she’s the only one of the three finalists who never once landed in the bottom or found herself in jeopardy of elimination across the entire season, earning consistent praise from both Mark Ballas and Shirley Ballas week after week. That track record makes her the closest thing to a favorite heading into the finale, though a strong semifinal from either competitor could still change that on finale night itself.
AJ Pritchard: Already a Known Face in Ballroom TV
Pritchard isn’t new to celebrity ballroom television — he spent four seasons, 2016 through 2019, as a professional dancer on the UK’s Strictly Come Dancing, partnering celebrity contestants including Claudia Fragapane, Mollie King, Lauren Steadman, and Saffron Barker, before leaving the show in 2020. That prior professional ballroom-TV experience gives him a genuinely different profile than his two competitors heading into a finale specifically built to identify the next full-time professional for the American version of the format.
Selena Hamilton: The All-Genre Technical Finalist
Hamilton’s training spans ballet, tap, jazz, modern, and contemporary dance — a broader technical base across styles than a competitor who specializes primarily in one discipline, which has shown up in how the judges have discussed her versatility across the season’s varied weekly themes and genre requirements.
What’s Actually Happening at Tonight’s Finale
The finale, titled “The Final Step,” brings the three finalists back for a last round of judged performances alongside a genuinely high-profile guest lineup: former Dancing with the Stars finalists Charli D’Amelio, Nev Schulman, and Adam Rippon are set to perform with the competitors, and Derek Hough joins regular judges Mark Ballas and Shirley Ballas as a guest judge for the finale specifically — alongside Witney Carson, who’s featured throughout the special. The stakes for whoever wins are concrete and immediate: a professional contract on Dancing with the Stars Season 35, airing this fall, rather than just a title with no further platform attached.
Frequently Asked Questions
When does Dancing with the Stars: The Next Pro crown its winner?
The finale airs August 31, 2026, titled “The Final Step.”
Who are the three finalists?
Selena Hamilton, AJ Pritchard, and Adele Zaikman.
Why was Allen Genkin eliminated in the semifinals?
Judge Shirley Ballas said he’d “ever so slightly underperformed” relative to the other three finalists — a cumulative pattern around confidence and TV-readiness rather than any single weak performance, despite a semifinal jive judges praised directly.
What does the winner actually get?
A professional dancer contract on Season 35 of Dancing with the Stars, premiering this fall — a real, concrete job, not just a title.
Who is favored to win?
Adele Zaikman enters the finale with the strongest season-long track record — she’s the only finalist who never landed in the bottom or faced elimination jeopardy at any point in the competition — though that’s not a guarantee against a strong finale-night performance from either competitor.
The Bottom Line
Three genuinely different paths converge at tonight’s finale: Zaikman’s unbroken run of judge approval, Pritchard’s existing ballroom-TV pedigree from Strictly, and Hamilton’s cross-genre technical range. Whoever wins walks straight into a real professional contract on Dancing with the Stars Season 35 this fall — this piece will be updated with the actual result once tonight’s finale airs.
