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Ballroom Passion! ‘DWTS’ Pros Emma Slater and Alan Bersten Are Reportedly ‘Hooking Up’
More romance in the ballroom! Dancing With the Stars pros Emma Slater and Alan Bersten are reportedly “hooking up” after fans began speculating the two are dating.
The relationship is “not new, it’s ongoing,” a source told Us Weekly on Wednesday, October 30, adding that Emma, 35, and Alan, 30, are not out in the open as a couple yet.
Fan speculation about Emma and Alan’s romance ramped up after someone posted a photo on X on October 16 that showed the pair holding hands backstage.
Things could have been a little awkward for the couple, as Emma’s ex-husband, fellow DWTS pro Sasha Farber, was also competing on season 33, which premiered on September 17.
Emma was eliminated with celebrity partner Reginald VelJohnson in week 4 of the show. Sasha, 40, was sent home with celebrity partner Jenn Tran on Tuesday, October 29. Alan is still in the hunt for the Mirrorball trophy with Olympic rugby star Ilona Maher.
Alan previously joked that he didn’t want to mix romance with his career after fans speculated he and partner Hannah Brown were involved when they won season 28 of DWTS.
“I learned after a few seasons to not mix business with pleasure,” Alan told Us Weekly in January 2020.
“We knew people would talk and assume, especially because she was the Bachelorette and I’m still single,” he added. “So we expected it, but we didn’t really let that get into our heads.”
Alan was also rumored to be dating model Alex Ren when the pair were partners on DWTS in 2018, although they went their separate ways after the show wrapped.
DWTS fans watched Emma and Sasha’s relationship play out, from their engagement through their split.
The Moscow, Russia, native proposed to Emma during a live episode of the show in October 2016 after years of dating. After the duo performed a contemporary dance, he got down on one knee and said, “Babe, I wanted to do this for such a long, long time. I love you so much. Will you marry me?”
“Sasha just proposed to Emma and thankfully she said yes because we didn’t have graphics for the other option,” then-host Tom Bergeron joked about the surprise proposal.
The couple married in 2018 and news of their split broke in August 2022.
Emma opened up about the reason behind their breakup during an August 2023 episode of “The Viall Files” podcast.
“We’re still like family, so it isn’t really like the love is not there, it’s actually not that at all. We’re just at potentially two different places. But the hard part was that the love actually didn’t go [away],” the Tamworth, United Kingdom, native explained.
“It’s really the kid thing. It’s interesting because I do want to have kids, I just don’t want to delay Sasha’s path in having kids because I know that he is ready for that. I don’t want to talk about him too much because that’s really for him to say, but it’s about kids,” Emma continued.
The 2017 Mirrorball champ added that she did “want kids,” but that she was “just figuring that out for myself. It’s not something I take lightly and I don’t want to enter into something that I’m not sure about because I would never do that.”
“So, that’s been the real friction and the real hard part,” Emma added. “It had nothing to do with him. He’s always been very much himself. It’s me that’s found it difficult to understand why I’m feeling different.”
Emma and Sasha’s divorce was finalized in May 2024.
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