‘Dancing With The Stars' Renewed For Season 34 At ABC; Robert Irwin Joins Cast As First Celebrity
Wildlife conservationist Robert Irwin will join the ABC competition for Season 34. He follows in the footsteps of his sister Bindi, who took home the Mirrorball Trophy in Season 21 alongside her partner Derek Hough.
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The full cast of celebrities and pro dancers for Season 34 will be announced at a later date.
DWTS is coming off another successful season on ABC. Season 33 ranked No. 1 this past fall among adults 18-49 in Live+Same Day viewing, marking the first time the series ranked No. 1 for the broadcast season in L+SD in its history.
The show also attracted younger viewers in Season 33, earning its best adults 18-34 ratings in four years. And viewers definitely turned out with their votes; several records were broken throughout the season before an astonishing 32 million — another milestone — cast their final picks for the winner. Joey Graziadei and Jenna Johnson ended up winning the Len Goodman Mirrorball Trophy.
DWTS is produced in front of a live audience by BBC Studios Los Angeles Productions.
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Luke Macfarlane on Developing a Queer Hallmark Christmas Movie and Playing a Straight Character in ‘Platonic': ‘I'm Very Versatile'
For many years, Luke Macfarlane was one of only a handful of gay actors who never shied away from playing queer roles. His coming out during a newspaper interview in 2008 coincided with him playing Matthew Rhys' husband on the ABC family drama 'Brothers & Sisters.' But in his latest work, Apple TV+'s 'Platonic,' Macfarlane plays a straight character, Rose Byrne's husband. More from Variety 'Butterfly' Star Piper Perabo on Why Playing the Villain Was 'Relaxing' and Hoping for a Second Season: 'I Want Even More Guns' 'Smoke' Star Jurnee Smollett on Killing [SPOILER] and Filming That Harrowing Car Scene With Taron Egerton 'Surrounded by Fire': 'Your Adrenaline Is Rushing' Daniel Dae Kim on 'Butterfly,' the One Stunt He Wasn't Allowed to Do and the Success of 'KPop Demon Hunters': It Wouldn't Have Been 'Made Even 10 Years Ago' 'Quite simply, like most actors, gay actors, straight actors, we just need someone to say, 'I'm gonna give you a shot,'' Macfarlane told me at the 'Platonic' premiere in Los Angeles. 'The fact is somebody said, 'That guy who just did this movie 'Bros,' where he gets into a lot of very gay stuff, can play a straight guy,' and that's truly because somebody said somebody in power said, 'I'm going to give you a shot.' I'm so grateful to Nick for that opportunity.' Nick is Nicholas Stoller, the director of 'Bros' and co-creator of 'Platonic.' Currently in its second season, 'Platonic' follows the lives — the ups, the downs, and the very hysterical — of best friends Will (Seth Rogen) and Sylvia (Byrne). I joked with Macfarlane about the possibility of not playing gay again. 'I love playing gay,' he said. 'I'll play gay. I'll play straight. I'll do anything. I am very versatile.' In fact, Macfarlane is not only a regular in Hallmark Channel movies with both gay and straight roles, but he's developing an LGBTQ Christmas movie for the network. 'Hallmark is definitely telling queer stories, so I've been trying to find a queer story that would make sense for them…It's very long development,' he said. Macfarlane says queer Hallmark movies offer a break from the very real-world political attacks on the LGBTQ community. 'I think what's interesting with Hallmark is their brand is so intact and part of their brand has never been to be overtly political, at least all the time that I've worked there,' he said. 'For them, it's just continuing to tell stories that really resonate with people that can still be an escape from the difficulties of our current situation.' He added, 'We all have a queer friend, we all have a queer neighbor, we all have a queer brother or sister….It's actually just part of life.' 'Platonic' Season 2, episode 4 premieres on Apple TV+ on Aug. 20. Best of Variety New Movies Out Now in Theaters: What to See This Week Emmy Predictions: 'The Studio' Poised to Tie Comedy Win Record — and Why Drama is a Two-Horse Race for 'Severance' and 'The Pitt' What's Coming to Disney+ in August 2025 Solve the daily Crossword
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Jimmy Kimmel Blasts Reports of Stephen Colbert's ‘Late Show' Losing $40 Million for CBS: ‘Not a Snowball's Chance in Hell That's Accurate'
There's something refreshing about Jimmy Kimmel's anger. Variety scheduled this sit-down interview with the Emmy-winning host, producer and comedian occurred in mid-July just after he found out he had landed four Primetime Emmy nominations for outstanding talk series (ABC's 'Jimmy Kimmel Live!'), short form comedy, drama or variety series (YouTube's 'The Rabbit Hole with Jimmy Kimmel'), game show (as an executive producer) and game show host (ABC's 'Who Wants to be a Millionaire'). 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What was initially planned as a conversation about his Emmy nominations quickly transformed into an industry veteran's passionate defense of late-night television and a masterclass in media economics. Kimmel, clearly frustrated by what he sees as widespread misinformation about his industry, actively encouraged deeper questions about the business side of television, affiliate fees and the evolving landscape of comedy programming. His message was clear: the reports of late-night's death have been greatly exaggerated. In a wide-ranging and candid interview with Variety, Kimmel dismantles industry misconceptions with the precision of someone who's been in the trenches for decades, discusses his deep love and admiration for Colbert (and why he's voting for him), in addition to sharing an untold Matt Damon story that will be equal parts hilarious and perfectly on brand. Congratulations on being greedy with Emmy nominations this year — you got three. At 57 years old, did you ever think you'd be in this position? I never thought I'd be in this position in the first place. I wanted to be a disc jockey on a radio station, and had I been able to get a job in my hometown of Las Vegas, I don't know that I ever would have left. I would almost certainly have been fired from that job and forced to leave, based on my history. But this is all much more than I ever imagined it would be. You've put up a billboard on Santa Monica and La Cienega declaring you're voting for Stephen Colbert this year. What's your mindset behind that? Well, it seems like voting for Stephen is the least we could do at this point, and I think it will be a nice statement if he does win. Obviously, awards don't mean much, but every once in a while they do, and in this case, I think it will. So I fully expect Stephen to win the Emmy as I think people are very, very upset about what happened to him and his show. Talk about your game show host nomination. What was different about getting into that gig? I started as a game show host. My first television job was as the co-host on 'Win Ben Stein's Money' on Comedy Central. In our first year, Ben and I won the Emmy for best game show host. We'd never been to an award show of any kind. We couldn't believe we were even nominated. I think the only reason we were nominated was because there weren't that many game shows on the air. The idea that we would beat Alex Trebek and Pat Sajak — we had no thoughts planned, no delusions. We were just excited to be flown to New York for the Emmy Awards. And then when we won, I gave my Emmy to Susan Lucci, who — when you talk about losing streaks — is the most famous actress with one of all time. So when I won, Ben had used all the time talking, and I just said, it's ridiculous that we're here for the first time and we won the Emmy and Susan Lucci is sitting there, and she doesn't have one. I walked down, she was in the front row, and I handed her my Emmy, and went back to my seat. You've shown great camaraderie with the other late-night hosts, especially during the Colbert situation. Talk about those friendships. We are really close. We became especially close during the strike. We had long, fun conversations about how to handle the situation and decided to do a podcast. Now it's a text chain — a frequent one. I think we were all shocked and disappointed that this kind of thing is happening in America, and also disappointed that we don't see more people on the right stepping up and saying, 'Hey, this is no good.' Silencing comedians, commentators, whatever you want to call people… I have to say, if Joe Biden had used his muscle to get Sean Hannity kicked off the air, you may be surprised to learn that I would not support that. I would, in fact, support Sean Hannity in that situation, because I thought one of the founding principles of this country was free speech. But people don't seem to care about protecting it unless you agree with them. Speaking of that text chain, any chance that Defense Secretary and former Fox News host Pete Hegseth has been added to that chain 'by accident' to expose war plans? Only inadvertently. There have been reports that Colbert's show was losing $40 million a year. What's your take on that? I just want to say that the idea that Stephen Colbert's show was losing $40 million a year is beyond nonsensical. These alleged insiders who supposedly analyze the budgets of the shows — I don't know who they are, but I do know they don't know what they're talking about. They seem to only be focused on advertising revenue and have completely forgotten about affiliate fees, which number in the hundreds of millions — probably in total billions — and you must allocate a certain percentage of those fees to late-night shows. It really is surprising how little the media seems to know about how the media works. There's just not a snowball's chance in hell that that's anywhere near accurate. Even that — that's all you need to know. Suddenly he's losing $40 million a year? I will tell you, the first 10 years I did the show, they claimed we weren't making any money — and we had five times as many viewers on ABC as we do now. Who knows what's true? All I know is they keep paying us — and that's kind of all you need to know. What about the narrative that late-night television is dead? Network television is declining. There's no question about that. But more people are watching late-night television than ever before — and I include Johnny Carson in that. People may find that shocking. When Carson was at his peak, he was getting around 9 million viewers a night. That's huge. Of course, the lead-in shows were getting 30 and 40 million, which was a big part of it. But people are still watching late-night — just in different places. Our monologues get between 2 and 5 million views, sometimes more, every night. Seth Meyers gets 2 million on YouTube alone. We're not even talking about Instagram or the other platforms. 'The Daily Show' — Jon Stewart on a Monday night will get 5 million views. Then you add in the TV ratings. So the idea that late-night is dead is simply untrue. People just aren't watching it on network television in the numbers they used to — or live, for that matter. So the advertising model may be dying, but late-night television is the opposite. If you look at streaming numbers — how many streaming shows get 10 million views a week? Twenty million? Very few. I think if you really look at how people are watching these shows, and the numbers, it's right up there with the top shows on Netflix and Hulu. Yet in the media, you'd think this is a rotting corpse — which it most certainly is not. It just doesn't add up. It's a great storyline for the press, but it's simply not true. Why should people vote for Stephen Colbert at the Emmys? He's not just a sweet man. He is very moral — he's a very ethical person. He is the salt of the earth. He is a humble person and an extremely smart person. I hope that whatever he does next is even more powerful than what he'd been doing. And I think that's very possible. You have an untold Matt Damon story. Can you share it? Matt Damon was over at my house one night for dinner. I made pork ribs. He came late, was very hungry, and started eating fast. He started choking on a pork rib. It was stuck in his throat for about an hour and a half. His brother was there. I said, 'We have got to get him to the hospital,' because if he dies in my house, I'm going to prison for the rest of my life. I will never be able to explain this as anything other than a murder. We did a lot of YouTube-ing and finally concluded that eating little bits of bread was the way to get that rib to work its way down into his stomach — and bread saved him. We tried the Heimlich many times. It was too far down. Any final thoughts on the current political climate and Trump? I saw him [Trump] get booed at the WWE event the other night, and it really cheered me up. Like, you know what? If Trump is getting booed at wrestling, America is starting to catch on. This interview has been edited and condensed. Best of Variety New Movies Out Now in Theaters: What to See This Week Emmy Predictions: 'The Studio' Poised to Tie Comedy Win Record — and Why Drama is a Two-Horse Race for 'Severance' and 'The Pitt' What's Coming to Disney+ in August 2025 Solve the daily Crossword
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Paulina Porizkova on ‘The Golden Bachelor' and Hollywood's blind spot when it comes to gray dating
The supermodel talks about what finding love again at 60 has looked like for her. First things first: Paulina Porizkova is not interested in being a Golden Bachelor contestant. The supermodel is newly engaged to TV writer Jeff Greenstein, so she's off the market. But when the new season lead of The Bachelor franchise spin-off, Mel Owens, shared his criteria of acceptable women he was interested in dating on the show, Porizkova, on paper, would have been disqualified by his standards. She's graced the covers of Vogue, Sports Illustrated Swimsuit and countless other publications; she is also 60 and had double hip replacement surgery in 2024. But more: She has become an important voice in redefining aging. The No Filter: The Good, the Bad and the Beautiful author is outspoken about challenging outdated beauty ideals and calling out persistent double standards. So we brought The Bachelor brouhaha to her. It all started when Owens, a 66-year-old former NFL player turned attorney, said on the In the Trenches sports podcast in June that he prefers to date women ages '45 to 60,' and told producers, 'If they're 60 or over, I'm cutting them.' He also told them 'to try to stay away from the artificial hips' too. Owens has since walked back his comments, which sparked a backlash, telling Glamour he didn't understand the show's format or know the typical contestant age because he 'hadn't dated in 26, 27 years.' He finalized his divorce in December. His season of The Golden Bachelor premieres on Sept. 24. Porizkova sees this debate as bigger than The Golden Bachelor. 'Women are so used to this dynamic that a 60-year-old [man] dating a 40- or 30-year-old [woman] is fine,' she tells Yahoo. 'If he's powerful and has money, then he can date any age he wants.' But it raises a deeper question: Do men and women have different expectations of what love and companionship should look like in their golden years? Starting over The older man-younger woman relationship pairing has been spoon-fed for so long that it's normalized — and even romanticized. It's the age-old story: the man is strong and successful, the woman is young and beautiful. And audiences have long lapped it up. 'It was not that long ago that the male actors were 30 years older [than their leading ladies] and nobody blinked,' Porizkova says. 'Like [Entrapment co-stars] Catherine Zeta-Jones and Sean Connery — he was old enough to be her grandfather practically, and that was fine.' She argues that a more realistic portrayal of mature love is missing in shows and movies, particularly in rom-coms and romantic dramas. As someone who found love again in her late 50s, she wants to see more stories reflecting her life stage. 'This is why I [thought] that The Golden Bachelor — the original idea — was such a great one,' she says. 'There are a lot of people starting over … in midlife. 'Gray divorce' has a name, right? Let us see middle-aged people restarting. We actually restart from a much better place. Generally, we're smarter. We know what we want and what we don't want. It makes it harder to pick because a lot of [men] on offering are like the Golden Bachelor.' The reality of dating after 60 According to Pew Research Center data on single Americans in 2020, men significantly outnumber women in the dating market: 61% of single men said they were currently looking to date or be in a relationship compared with just 38% of single women. Those differences are starker after 40: 71% of older women say they weren't looking to date right now, compared with 42% of men in the same age cohort. A 2025 Pew Research study showed that women were more likely to be unpartnered later in life: 51% of women over 65 were single compared to 29% of men over 65. That helps explain why someone like Owens is looking to settle down again. Plus, it underscores the gender imbalance in the dating pool for that demographic. Barbara Greenberg, a clinical psychologist, tells Yahoo that older men in age-gap relationships often feel a renewed sense of vitality. Dating a younger partner — particularly after long marriages with women closer in age — can feel like a fresh start, bringing with it the excitement of new possibilities, including the possibility of more children. 'It's the ability to feel young again,' she says. 'And frankly, who doesn't want to feel younger?' Owens's ex-wife is reportedly 19 years younger, suggesting he may already be accustomed to dating outside of his age bracket. Still, the way society views an older man dating a younger woman — compared to the reverse — remains rooted in a double standard. 'When we see an older man and a younger woman, we think of a man who probably has a lot of financial stability and a woman who … has a lot of energy, youth and vibrancy,' says Greenberg. 'It's: 'Oh, they [must] have fun together.'' The perception shifts when it's an older woman and a younger man. ''What is psychologically wrong with her?'' she says of the bias. 'We think about it as a mother-son kind of thing [or that] the guy is using her for her money, even if she's beautiful and brilliant.' We've seen this play out in pop culture, including earlier this year when Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy star Renée Zellweger defended the title character's relationship with a younger man. But whether it's Nicole Kidman in 2024's Babygirl, Sally Field in 2015's Hello, My Name Is Doris, Cate Blanchett in 2006's Notes on a Scandal or Anne Bancroft in 1967's The Graduate, the older women are often portrayed as seductive, sad or delusional. Real-life couple Sam and Aaron Taylor-Johnson, who have a 23-year age gap, have also drawn public skepticism, even now 13 years into their marriage. Meanwhile, more couples are divorcing after 50 than before, with the rate for that age range doubling between 1990 and 2010. USA Today recently explored the idea of 'menodivorce' — or women leaving relationships around the time of menopause or perimenopause. With more than half of women over 65 single, it suggests there's far less urgency to repartner compared to men. In general, women are also happier being single than men, research has shown. 'Women seem more likely to be comfortable with their independence,' Greenberg says of gray dating. 'Maybe at this point, they want to focus on taking care of themselves, their friendships, their careers, whatever they have going on.' A second chance at an equal partnership For her part, Porizkova never thought she'd say 'I do' again after splitting from husband Ric Ocasek of the Cars in 2018. In 2023, she started dating Greenstein, 61, and the TV writer proposed in July. 'Before I met Jeff, I was steadfast about … never getting married again,' she says. 'What changed my mind was understanding that I had never truly been in a proper relationship before. I finally found my equal. And a big part of that is because I figured out who I was.' Heading into this marriage in her 60s, Porizkova brings a perspective she didn't have the first time. 'When you get married when you're very young, you're very hopeful and you're very naive about what marriage is,' says Porizkova, who met Ocasek — 21 years her senior — at 19 and married him when she was 24. 'I was filled with dreams: 'This is forever. Yes, we should absolutely merge our money … because we will never get divorced, even though he was divorced twice before me.'' Looking back, Porizkova says, 'I was a child when we met, so I didn't know any better. I was looking for a parental figure, and that … worked out well for me for a while.' That early relationship gives her insight into the appeal of age-gap dynamics and potential limitations. It's also taken her to where she is today. 'I'm somebody who grew up much too fast in certain ways and not at all in others, so it's taken me 60 years to reach a balance,' she says. 'It's amazing when you reach that balance, and then you can find a person that suits that balance.' Time to tell the full story Of course, it doesn't mean all age-gap relationships are destined to fail. Fifteen years ago, Greenberg says she 'was very skeptical' of May-December couplings, but her perspective has shifted after seeing some of these relationships succeed and bring genuine happiness to both partners. What she sees as crucial, however, is that couples have candid conversations early on about their future goals, values and the separate aging paths they're on. She wishes those kinds of honest moments showed up on TV and in films. 'They leave out that the older person is going to develop health issues, possible [changes in] sexuality or just slow down while the younger person still wants to go on trips and do things,' Greenberg says. 'Aging issues — that's what gets overlooked,' says Greenberg. 'What's going to happen in two, three decades?' Porizkova says she's disappointed that The Golden Bachelor — which began with the promise of casting contestants over 65 — has veered into what she views as 'sensationalism' with viewers tuning in to see him get a choice of beautiful women much younger than him. Meanwhile, the final list of contestants has yet to be announced, so it's unclear if producers even followed his criteria. She adds with a wink, 'I [hope] producers have thrown in lots of women with hip replacements [and] he won't find out until he's hooked.' Solve the daily Crossword
