14 DAY TRIAL // The first celebrity contestant on ABC’s Dancing With the Stars, season 21, will be announced today, August 24, 2015, with the rest to follow in early September. One name that we won’t be hearing called out, contrary to ongoing media reports, is that of Caitlyn Jenner.
Word that Cait was courted by producers to appear on the still-very-popular dancing competition has been around since before the transition, back in the day when she was still Bruce Jenner, reality star and Olympic gold medalist slash American hero.
Those rumors, though, never turned into reality and it seems that it won’t happen on season 21 either.
She’d be great, but she’s got other stuff to focus on right now
Gossip Cop spoke to Deena Katz, casting director and co-executive producer on DWTS, about the Caitlyn Jenner rumors, and she says that, while she’d be great on the show, she has more important things to focus on right now.
“I think right now she needs to figure out her life. Trust me, we will be fighting for her at some point. But for now, let Caitlyn become Caitlyn,” Katz says.
She doesn’t mean that in a bad way: Caitlyn is just adjusting to life as a woman, having transitioned from male to female earlier this year. She’s still getting the hang of it, as evidenced by her E!-produced docuseries I Am Cait.
As Katz puts it, being on DWTS brings a boost in media attention but also all kinds of reactions on social media. It would be wrong to “disrupt” Caitlyn’s life like this when she’s not even over the disruption caused by her transition yet. Still, from Katz’s insistence that Caitlyn would be “great,” we’re to understand that producers have her in mind for the future seasons.
Caitlyn would bring in huge ratings
And she’s right: Caitlyn would be great on the show, in the sense that she would bring in massive ratings. Everything she’s been on so far, with the exception of her own docuseries, which barely managed to make a splash when it premiered, has been watched with interest by millions of people.
DWTS is billed family entertainment and, as such, it usually veers from casting celebrities deemed controversial. However, they got their first transgender celebrity in 2011 with Chaz Bono, Cher’s son, and they saw that his presence on the show was met mostly with positive reviews.
Getting Caitlyn on, especially since she’s now considered a true American hero for championing for the LGBT community with her public transition, would probably turn into ratings gold.