What To Know
- Rylee Arnold revealed why she once feared her dance career would have to end.
- The Dancing With the Stars pro was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes at the age of 15 in 2021.
- Arnold has hinted at her DWTS return for Season 35 via social media.
Rylee Arnold questioned her future in dance years before becoming a pro on Dancing With the Stars.
Arnold was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes in 2021 when she was 15 years old. In an interview with Us Weekly published on Thursday, August 6, Arnold revealed that she thought her diagnosis would put an end to her dancing career.
“Right when I was diagnosed, I didn’t think I was going to dance anymore,” she explained. “I thought I was going to have to stop doing it and fully just devote my life to managing my health. But then I realized I didn’t [have to quit dancing].”
Noting that things were “really hard in the beginning,” Arnold added, “There’d be times where, I mean, as a teenager, I would be embarrassed to give myself a shot in front of friends at school or at dance, and there were just little things that I was like, ‘If I don’t prioritize this, I will not live a long and lengthy and beautiful life.’ Just balancing that and learning how to balance my life was really, really important. But ever since I got on [DWTS], I feel like I’ve really focused on balancing that and having that healthy balance.”
Arnold’s DWTS journey first began as a dancer on Dancing with the Stars: Juniors in 2018. She made her debut as a DWTS pro during Season 32 in 2023 and has gone on to compete with stars such as Harry Jowsey, Stephen Nedoroscik, and Scott Hoying.
Disney/Eric McCandless
“Even more so now, I feel like I finally am at a point where I understand how to manage my type 1 diabetes,” Arnold said of her current health. “It’s taken … a while to understand your body and how it works. So, it was about six years it took me to really, really get adjusted [and] understand how I react to things, how my body reacts to things, and I finally feel like I’m, like, ready to go.”
Arnold credited watching other people’s diabetes journeys online and on social media with helping her through her own. She also recalled making the difficult decision to skip out on the DWTS Live Tour earlier this year. (Arnold later joined the tour for a handful of shows amid cast absences.)
“Making the decision to step away from tour this last year was really hard, and because it was because of my health, it made me really sad,” she said. “But it was something I needed so badly. I needed to get home. I needed to rest. I’m now on, like, a continuous insulin pump. I recently got, like, my blood checked, and there’s this A1C number, and it basically tells you, like, how healthy you are, and it’s, like, dropped down tremendously. And just fixing that part of my life is going to make things so much easier this season.”
Heading into Season 35 of DWTS, Arnold said she’s feeling better than ever. “I’m just excited to have that, like, alleviated a little bit because I hate when that adds to my stress and just makes things so much harder. But I feel like I worked so much on, like, my mental health and my physical health this season, and I was able to just get ready for that,” she stated. “And I’m so grateful that I did because I think if I would have just jumped into the next thing and kept going this year, I think I would have not been ready for this season coming up. And now I’m excited and I feel refreshed.”
Fans will have to wait for official confirmation of Arnold’s DWTS return until the full Season 35 cast is revealed on the September 2 episode of Good Morning America. This season’s confirmed celebrity contestants include Maura Higgins, Ciara Miller, Jackson Olson, and Guillermo Rodriguez.
Arnold has teased her DWTS return via social media, revealing that she arrived in Los Angeles (where the show is filmed) in a Thursday TikTok video.
Dancing With the Stars, Season 35 Premiere, Tuesday, September 15, 8/7c, ABC