Season 33 of the beloved dance competition series Dancing with the Stars is already off with a bang, and in its 19-year residency on our television screens, chemistry like this is unprecedented. Brooks Nader, a model and Sports Illustrated cover star, has been paired up with tenured pro Gleb Savchenko in this season’s ballroom extravaganza.
Brooks Nader (28) is a recently divorced supermodel and actress from Baton Rouge, Louisiana who cemented herself in the fashion industry after being featured in and on the cover of Sports Illustrated.
Gleb Savchenko (41) is a professional ballroom dancer originally from Moscow, Russia. Gleb first joined the Dancing with the Stars cast as a pro in 2013 and has been working on the show ever since
From the premier of this season, which aired on Sep. 18, fans of the show took to Instagram and TikTok to discuss the ballroom’s hot new scandal; the “will they or won’t they” of Gleb and Brooks. Fans began to speculate as their pre-dance video package left little to the imagination of what was going on behind closed doors, while the pair adamantly denied that there was anything more than a professional relationship. Then, a backstage video of the two kissing before their week two performance confirmed the viewers’ suspicions. Fans of the show have been vocal in their feelings towards the loved-up co-stars, questioning whether Brooks is there for the right reasons. Shocked by the video were two pros of this season, Rylee Arnold and Ezra Sosa who were captured gasping at the pre-performance package. The two have been vocal in their love for the drama unfolding and are constantly in the comments of Brooks and Gleb’s social media posts.
Divided by a “love them or hate them” attitude, it seems the internet is favouring the latter. A TikTok video posted on Oct. 7 begs for the couple to be eliminated and the comments seemingly agree.
However, this isn’t the first time rumours of romance have taken over the ballroom; in season 27 Alan Bersten and his partner Alexis Ren dated, and even some of the pros have coupled up in the past, such as Val Chmerkovskiy and Jenna Johnson. So, what is so special about Glebs and Brooks? Could it be the unusual use of TikTok by the cast this season that hasn’t been season before? Or is it the potentially concerning fourteen-year age gap between the two?
Up until their week five elimination, Brooks and Gleb fed into this fan-fueled fantasy through a series of TikToks’ wherein the couple were seen tempting the fans with wandering hands and long-held gazes. On the night of their elimination, Brooks posted to TikTok showing the two engaging in a passionate kiss following the airing of the episode.
Is this just the beginning of a beautiful relationship between the stars or just a PR stunt to gain votes? We will have to wait and see…
UPDATE: In the week after their elimination, Brooks posted a TikTok stating “When he is breaking up with me, but I never knew we were dating” leading viewers to believe whatever romance there was between Brooks and Gleb has fizzled. Gleb responded with his own video, lip-syncing to “we’d hurt each other with the things we want to say, we could have been so good together” from Wham’s Careless Whisper, suggesting further trouble in paradise. The former partners have been posting back and forth ever since! Shady remarks are riddled through the audios used, video captions, and responses to comments left by viewers. It seems safe to say that we won’t be seeing any steamy videos from these two in the future.