Emma Slater will still be dancing when the music stops.

After the Dancing With the Stars pro completed her 17th season on the ABC competition series, she revealed how she feels about retirement rumors swirling around her.

“It’s hard,” she told former partner Andy Richter during a March 24 appearance on The Three Questions with Andy Richter podcast. “I want to go for as long as I can.”

But while professional dancers like Val Chmerkovskiy, 40, and Gleb Savchenko, 42, are even more veteran to the show, the 37-year-old isn’t surprised by people expecting a curtain to close on her time on the dancefloor.

“I could see how that rumor would get started,” she explained, “because most people are probably looking at me like, ‘Gosh, she’s the old girl.’”

And though Emma—who has been dating fellow pro Alan Bersten since 2025 and was previously married to Sasha Farber—slammed a clear “ageism” among female dancers, she acknowledged that her age does sometimes make her feel “different” among her younger DWTS peers.

“This is to be super blunt because I’m kind of insecure about it,” she continued. “I’d love to be like, ‘Yeah no, I’m still hot and young and my body doesn’t ache and I can hang with all these new ones.’”

The feeling goes even beyond the ballroom, with Emma noting she has resisted hopping on changing social media trends.

“That’s a big part of it,” she continued. “I really like to just be funny and sometimes I like to be emotional and sometimes I like to word vomit. But I’m not necessarily doing the dance trends. It’s not necessarily my bag. It just feels weird to me.”

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Still, Emma isn’t ready to step out of her dancing shoes just yet.

“I’ve just decided that I’m going to expect to be there,” she explained of the upcoming season 35, “and if and when they’re like, ‘Well you’re not so much invited anymore,’ then I’ll kind of conquer that when it happens.”

Nevertheless, it won’t feel good for her to leave at the wrong time. As she put it, “I would ultimately like it to be my decision.”

For more on the inside workings of Dancing With the Stars, keep reading…

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How Much Do the Celebrities Get Paid to Be on Dancing With the Stars?

Citing multiple sources, Variety reported in 2019 that Dancing With the Stars contestants make $125,000 for the rehearsal period and first two weeks of the show. If they progress beyond that point, the outlet continued, they earn more money each week. At the time, sources told the publication stars could earn a maximum of $295,000.

However, Bobby Bones said he made more than this when he won season 27 with Sharna Burgess in 2018.

“That show pays OK,” the radio personality said on a Sept. 2025 episode of Jason Tartick‘s podcast Trading Secrets. “Like, first episode, no money. Second episode, $10,000. I think it’s like, $10,000, $10,000, $20,000, $20,000. It ends up being $50,000 an episode if you last.”

Also receiving a base salary of around $110,000, Bones continued, “I ended up making close to $400,000 from that show.”

ABC has not publicly confirmed any of these figures.

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