Sarah Jane Nader is following her sister Brooks Nader into the Dancing With the Stars ballroom, but her first season already looks very different.
The 23-year-old Love Thy Nader star has been paired with 20-year-old first-time pro Hailey Bills for Season 35. Together, they become the third same-sex pairing in the U.S. show’s history and only its second pairing made up of two women, following JoJo Siwa and Jenna Johnson in Season 30.
For Nader, the significance is personal. She told Entertainment Weekly that it was meaningful to become “the representation that I didn’t have growing up,” adding that she hopes two women competing together eventually stops feeling unusual.
The partnership was not simply assigned without her input. Executive producer Conrad Green said Nader wanted to dance with a woman, while Bills was enthusiastic about the idea. Now both enter the season with something new to prove, Nader outside the orbit of her sisters and Bills in her first year as a full-time professional.
Nader Wants Two Women Dancing Together to Become Normal
Nader has not treated the pairing as a novelty. She described the opportunity as an honor and said she hopes that, within a few years, viewers will see two women dancing together on the show without considering it remarkable.
That places her and Bills in a short line of same-sex partnerships. Johnson and Siwa became the first in Season 30 and finished as runners-up. Shangela and Gleb Savchenko followed in Season 31, making Nader and Bills the third same-sex team in the U.S. show’s history.
The new partners also found their rhythm quickly. In a PEOPLE interview, Nader recalled the pair screaming in the studio when they learned they would be dancing together. She described Bills as the “sweetest girl in the world” but said her new pro can also become stern in rehearsal when necessary.
Producers Kept Coming Back to Nader and Bills
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There was a deliberate casting decision behind the partnership. Green told TheWrap that Nader wanted a female partner and said the production team repeatedly returned to the chemistry between her and Bills while considering the match.
Bills enters the partnership with a different kind of pressure. Season 35 is her first as a full-time pro after she danced in the troupe during Season 34 and traveled with the show’s live tour. She also has a family connection to one of the show’s most important earlier milestones.
Her aunt is Jenna Johnson, the two-time Mirrorball Trophy winner who partnered with JoJo Siwa in the first same-sex pairing in DWTS history. Bills has wanted a permanent place on the show for years. After her promotion was announced, she shared an old note in which she wrote about someday competing on DWTS and wanting to be like Johnson when she grew up.
Brooks Nader Told Her Sister to Make the Experience Her Own
Sarah Jane also has someone close to home who knows how quickly a season can move. Brooks competed with Savchenko during Season 33 and finished ninth.
Her advice to her younger sister was less about choreography than staying present. Sarah Jane said Brooks encouraged her to make the experience her own, be herself, embrace the difficult moments and avoid taking the competition too seriously.
The younger Nader is also looking at DWTS as a chance to introduce herself outside the family unit viewers know from Love Thy Nader. Much of her television work so far has involved Brooks and sisters Mary Holland and Grace Ann. “I’m excited for people to get to know me as an individual,” she told PEOPLE.
Nader and Bills Join a 16-Couple Season
The Season 35 field includes 16 celebrity-pro partnerships, with contestants including Julia Stiles, Harry Shum Jr., Tatyana Ali, Giada De Laurentiis, Jenna Dewan, Tyler Cameron, Amber Glenn, Maura Higgins, Ciara Miller and Taylor Hanson.
Nader has already identified one person at the judges’ table who makes her particularly nervous, Derek Hough. She knows Hough personally and told EW that the existing relationship makes her especially eager to make him proud.
She and Bills will not have long to settle those nerves. Dancing With the Stars opens Season 35 with a two-night premiere Sept. 15 and 16 at 8 p.m. ET/PT on ABC and Disney+, with episodes available on Hulu the following day.