Taylor Hanson did not wait for Dancing With the Stars to pair him with Britt Stewart. He asked for her.

“I specifically asked the show,” Hanson said on the October 1 episode of the Dancing With the Stars Official Podcast, taped days after the pair’s elimination. “If you’re gonna pair me with anyone, I would like to be paired with Britt because she represents the spirit of why this show is great and why it is 35 seasons in.”

A request, not an assignment

Pro pairings on Dancing With the Stars are usually framed as something that happens to a celebrity, decided by producers for chemistry, skill gap or storyline. Hanson’s version flips that. He went in with a specific name and a specific reason, and that reason was not about Stewart’s win record. It was about what she represents inside a show now in its 35th season.

“She has done a lot of what I have done in a lot of ways with dance for most of her life,” Hanson said, growing emotional. “She’s thrown her heart at it… and that’s the thing most people avoid.”

He placed her alongside a different category of people entirely.

“I think, like, all my heroes, that’s what they’ve done. My heroes are not all musicians. My heroes are architects and painters and people that had crazy ideas.”

The family sign-off came first

Hanson said the read on Stewart was not his alone. “My whole family did,” he said of recognizing something in her. “[They’re] like, ‘That’s your girl.’ And I am so grateful that happened because she’s incredible.”

That detail matters more than it sounds. A celebrity contestant lobbying for a specific pro, backed by his own family’s read on her before the show even started, is a different kind of endorsement than a producer-assigned chemistry test. It is a bet placed in advance, not a pairing justified after the fact.

Elimination did not undo the premise

The bet did not pay off in mirrorball terms. Hanson and Stewart were eliminated Tuesday, September 29, following their Yacht Rock Night performance. Hanson called it the “biggest disappointment,” but notably did not revise his read on Stewart after the loss.

“I wanted to take it to the mirrorball for this girl,” he said. “[I’m] just grateful for the journey.”

Stewart’s response to being sought out, rather than assigned, pointed to something she said is rare for her on the show.

“It means so much that Taylor could see me through a distance. When we got paired, he walked through the room in our first meet[ing] and I was like, ‘He’s for sure my partner.’ I just knew instantly.”

She added that she can “be quiet or a little bit more reserved,” and that being specifically requested, rather than matched by process, registered as being seen rather than cast.

What the request signals about the show itself

Hanson tied his reasoning directly to where he thinks Dancing With the Stars is culturally right now, 35 seasons deep.

“I’m really glad the culture is loving on Dancing With the Stars right now because there is something really elegant and really elevated… It’s just positive and I think that’s a really good thing. We could use some more of it.”

That framing turns a partner request into a small referendum on the format’s longevity. A contestant naming a specific pro as the embodiment of “why this show is great” is a different kind of praise than a judge’s score. It suggests the show’s current cultural moment is being read by its own participants as earned through its people, not its format.

Where this leaves Stewart

Stewart said she and Hanson shared the same goal of going “all the way,” and called the early exit a shared disappointment. But she also drew a line between the competition’s outcome and the partnership itself.

• “There is a lot more that can come from this partnership and friendship that we have formed.”
• “It is truly formed off of authenticity. And so because of that, it won’t stop here in the ballroom.”

For Stewart, being the pro a celebrity contestant asks for by name, before meeting her, is a credential that outlasts a season. The elimination ended the competition. It did not end the premise Hanson built his request on.

Dancing With the Stars airs Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET on ABC and Disney+.