They've got their partners. Now, they just have to learn the moves!
Following the cast announcement on Monday, ABC on Wednesday unveiled the celebrity-dancer pairings for the new season of Dancing with the Stars, premiering March 21st.
The couples are as follows: Kendra Wilkinson and Louis van Amstel; Chelsea Kane and Mark Ballas; Wendy Williams and Tony Dovolani; Kirstie Alley and Maksim Chmerkovskiy; Petra Nemcova and Dimitry Chaplin; Chris Jericho and Cheryl Burke; Romeo and Chelsie Hightower; Mike Catherwood and Lacey Schwimmer; Sugar Ray Leonard and Anna Trebunskaya; Hines Ward and Kym Johnson; and Ralph Macchio and Karina Smirnoff.
The stars have three weeks to prepare for the premiere, and Alley, 60, said the pressure is on.
"My partner [Maksim Chmerkovskiy] is calling me 'G' for Grandma," she said at Monday's press conference. "He says I'm too slow. I call him 'M' for mean."
Get ready to rumba!
Actress Kirstie Alley, reality star Kendra Wilkson and talk show host Wendy Williams will square off against former boxing champ Sugar Ray Leonard, actor Ralph Macchio and Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver Hines Ward on season 12 of Dancing with the Stars, it was announced live Monday night.
The cast – 11 stars in all – was revealed during The Bachelor telecast. Model Petra Nemcova, actress Chelsea Kane, radio personality Mike Catherwood, singer and actor Romeo, and WWE star Chris Jericho are also competing.
The celebrities, whose respective professional dancer pairings will be revealed on Wednesday, have just three weeks to prepare for the March 21st season premiere on ABC.
The nerves are already kicking in for Kane, who starred on Disney Channel’s Jonas L.A.
"I don't know how I'm going to react to the judges when there's a camera on my face and I'm trying to smile through it," Kane, 22, says. "Hopefully, I won't ruin my makeup."
The A&E Network has announced that “Kirstie Alley’s Big Life” will premiere on March 21, 2010 at 10:00 pm (ET). The reality show will chronicle the extraordinary life of the award winning actress during her ongoing weight loss journey.
The single mother of two teenagers has decided to open up her home and will give her fans unprecedented access to her latest attempt at conquering her battle with obesity. She said, “This show has been cathartic for me…shown me who I really am…again. And it’s really freaking funny.”
Kirstie received a Golden Globe and an Emmy in 1991 for her role as Rebecca Howe in “Cheers”. She also appeared in “Veronica’s Closet” and “Fat Actress” and won another Emmy in 1994 for the made-for-TV movie “David’s Mother”. Her film credits include blockbuster hits “Look Who’s Talking” and “Drop Dead Gorgeous”.
Kirstie Alley is ready to get real about her weight struggles.
The actress, 58, has signed on to star in a new reality series for A&E, which will follow her as she juggles trying to lose weight with life as a single mom to two teenagers in Hollywood.
The untitled show, which will run for 10 half-hour episodes, is scheduled to debut sometime next year.
"Kirstie is exactly the kind of star A&E is drawn to," said A&E nonfiction/alternative programming senior VP Robert Sharenow. "Her personal life has been playing out in the media for years, but this will be the first time she'll be opening up her home to reveal her real life for the cameras."
While the actress has talked about her weight issues on TV before and starred in the 2005 scripted Showtime series Fat Actress, this marks her first foray into reality television.
In May, Alley said in an interview that while she had gained 83 lbs., she had a plan to get her life back on track: "I'm gonna go, 'You know what? Get back on the horse, lose the freakin' weight, and then just move forward!' "
When Kirstie Alley stepped on the scale for the first time in 15 months, it wasn't pretty. "I started screaming," recalls Alley, sipping homemade fruit-infused water in her Hollywood kitchen. "It said 228 lbs., which is my highest weight ever. I was so much more disgusting than I thought!"
But looking back, Alley, 58, is hardly shocked. During her three-year stint as a Jenny Craig spokeswoman, she famously trimmed down to 145 lbs. after losing and keeping off 75 lbs. But since parting ways with the company in 2007, she had not worked out and banished her gym equipment to the garage. As for her diet, her small, low-calorie portions gave way to Chinese takeout and pasta drenched with butter. "I fell off the horse," says the 5'8" star.
Today, Alley says she is primed to hire a trainer, toss the butter and sign up for a triathlon in order to whittle her "schlumpy" figure back down to a bikini-ready 140 lbs. "I'm going to have to work harder than last time," she says, but "I'm way excited." In a candid interview, Alley sat down with PEOPLE's Elizabeth Leonard to talk about how she piled on the pounds – and how she plans to get her body, confidence and – yes! – even her groove back.
Okay, how did this happen?
It started with New Year's [2008], right after leaving Jenny Craig. When you're a spokesperson for Jenny Craig, there's responsibility. You have a person every week standing over you when you get on the scale, and I did it naked because those panties could weigh 30 lbs.! It was amazingly successful. But the first nail in the coffin was that I didn't have to weigh in. I just sort of went wild.
Did you go right back to indulging in cakes and pies the way you did the first time you let yourself go?
It wasn't the exact same M.O. My food demons are Chinese food, sugar, butter. A lot of butter. If I'm at the movies, usually I eat popcorn without butter, but I'd say, "I'm at the movies, so who cares?" And toast with butter. Or let's say I had two cups of pasta and six tablespoons of butter on it. There was a lot of butter going on.
What else would you eat?
For seven months I was a vegetarian, and I can't tell you how much weight I gained being a vegetarian! A vegetarian would probably be eating vegetables. But to me being a vegetarian meant I'm going to eat enchiladas with no meat, and I'm going to eat lots of bread, lots of carbs.
What weight do you want to get down to?
I have to be below 140 to really look good. I have to work my legs like crazy. Actually, do you want my real goal? My real goal's always too low. I love the way I look at, like, 128. One time on Cheers, I weighed about 148 lbs., and they told me to lose, like, 20 lbs. Now, I'm 5'8", so at 148 lbs., I wasn't fat. But they're saying, "You know, you need to lose 20 lbs." So what does that put me at? 128. That's where I keep getting this number.
Are you self-conscious?
I'm totally inhibited. When I'm overweight I will not go out. With my closest friends, yeah. But you wouldn't see me at a premiere.
But you seem ready to turn your life around.
I'm ready to work. I messed up along the way, but I'm not going to concentrate on that. I'm gonna go, "You know what? Get back on the horse, lose the freakin' weight, and then just move forward!"
For more on Kirstie's journey from slim to "schlumpy" – including her comments on her kids, her sex life and how she plans to lose the pounds – pick up the new issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands Friday.
Actress Kirstie Alley is determined to be "ripped" and look like First Lady Michelle Obama by the time she launches her new weight loss brand in November.
The former Cheers star has gained back all the weight she lost while she was a spokeswoman for diet company Jenny Craig in 2007 and then some. And now she's fighting to get thin again.
Appearing on pal Oprah Winfrey's show, where she once showed off a post-diet bikini body, on Thursday, Alley discussed her plans to shape up, insisting she had already lost 20 pounds in five weeks and hopes to look like the U.S. President's wife by November.
She says, "By November I have to look ripped."
And she's aiming for Obama's body: "I could have those arms; I don't know about the legs.
"My whole issue is my butt and my legs, so I have to get pretty thin to have a really good butt and legs."
They've got their partners. Now, they just have to learn the moves!
