‘Dancing With The Stars’ Pro Lindsay Arnold Calls Mentoring Sister Rylee on ‘Juniors’ a ‘Dream’ Come True

When Lindsay Arnold heard ABC was putting together a Dancing With The Stars spin-off featuring young celebrities and dancers, she knew of a very specific talent pool ABC could draw from: her sisters. Since Dancing With The Stars: Juniors launched, Arnold’s youngest sister Rylee has been one half of the best team on the show.

“My family has come to [Dancing With The Stars] over the past seven years so many times that all of the producers knew I had little sisters and everything,” Arnold told PopCulture.com in a recent exclusive interview. “But of course, when they said we’re thinking of doing a Juniors version, immediately, I was like, okay you got to get my sister on it.”

The producers invited Rylee, 13, but she still had to audition for the show, despite her family connections. After the audition, they “immediately saw that she is a star, like I’m sure everybody’s seeing now,” Arnold said.

“That’s how they got her on the show and I’m so grateful for it because it has truly been a dream,” Arnold said. “Every time I talk about it, I pinch myself a little bit because I can’t believe that I’m actually able to do a Dancing with the Stars show with my little sister.”

Arnold also signed on to mentor Rylee, who was paired with Black-ish actor Miles Brown. The pair have had the highest scores for weeks two and three. They got three 9’s for their Charleston dance to Aladdin‘s “One Jump Ahead” in week three.

“Those two together are incredible,” Arnold said of their performances. “Seriously, their passion for everything that they do is so incredible. And it made working with them the most enjoyable thing I’ve ever done.”

Arnold is also participating in the adult DWTS with DeMarucs Ware, but if you think her schedule is too packed with two shows, do not worry. DWTS Juniors was pre-taped during the summer, and Arnold said it has been a joy to see people react to the performances.

“It’s really cool that we now get to relive those moments,” Arnold said. “Because it happened quite a while ago. So it’s fun to sort of watch it and remember all the times that we had and all the memories that we made.”

Arnold, 24, and Rylee are not the only dancers in the family. Her middle sisters Brynley and Jensen followed in Arnold’s dance steps. Arnold said her parents signed her up for a dance class and she loved it. Her younger sisters followed after seeing how much she enjoyed dancing.

“It’s funny because neither of my parents were dancers, but it came very, very naturally for all of us girls,” Arnold told PopCulture.com. “It was something that we just fell into and we loved. And then when my parents realized they had four dancers on their hands, they actually opened up a dance studio for us all to train at. And that’s how our love and our bond for dance started for our family.”

You can watch Rylee dance with Brown each week on Dancing With The Stars: Juniors on ABC Sundays at 8 p.m. ET. Arnold dances with Ware on Dancing With The Stars Mondays at 8 p.m. ET on ABC.

Photo credit: ABC