Peta Murgatroyd has announced she will be competing as a professional partner on Dancing with the Stars' upcoming 28th season this fall.
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"I'm excited and happy to be back with my family. Honestly, I just missed everybody so much! As a lot of people know, it's such a close and tight-knit family, so I'm just happy to be back with everybody."
Peta joined Dancing with the Stars in 2011 for Season 13 and has participated in 11 seasons total, two of which she had won the mirrorball trophy with celebrity partners Donald Driver and Nyle DiMarco.
Peta has been married to former Dancing with the Stars pro Maksim Chmerkovskiy since July 2017, and they welcomed their first child together, a son named Shai Aleksander, about six months earlier in January 2017.
Less than three months after delivering her baby, Peta competed on Season 24 of Dancing with the Stars with Nick Viall in Spring 2017.
That summer, Peta admitted to Entertainment Tonight she was unsure about whether to return for the show's Fall 2017 edition because her priorities had changed.
"I don't want to spend 10 hours away a day from my child, so those things factor into [whether to return to DWTS] for me," Peta told ET at the time. "I'm a mom now and that comes first, you know?"
But Peta did in fact return for Season 25 of Dancing with the Stars in Fall 2017, when she took the dance floor week after week with Nick Lachey.
Peta then sat out for the next two editions of the show, Seasons 26 and 27, but she never ruled out the possibility of coming back.
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"I definitely wanted this to happen. I hoped that I could make this work for a couple of months now and was praying and hoping that it would all align," Peta told Us.
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"It was the perfect time for my family. Maks has other things going on and Shai is well taken care of and it was just a good time for us."
Maksim -- who competed as a pro partner for 17 DWTS seasons and won Season 18 with Meryl Davis -- is not returning for the new season, but he reportedly said he's "fired up" for his wife to come back.
As for whether Maksim will ever give Dancing with the Stars another go, Peta told the magazine, "I'm sure he would consider it."
"I think it just has to line up with what he's doing and what I'm doing and I feel like he still wants to dance," Peta said of her 39-year-old husband. "He's still fit and healthy!"
Peta told Us that she's excited to have Maksim and Shai cheer her on from the crowd but her experience will definitely be different this time around.
"I'm totally going to miss dancing with him. That's a big thing in our lives. We love to dance together," Peta said of Maksim choosing not to compete as a pro partner.
"I think it's that comfort level of having your best friend with you. I mean, he's my everything. It definitely won't be the same, but there are many people on the show who are like family to me, so it's not like I'm going to be missing out on any love or kindness!"
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Dancing with the Stars premieres Season 28 on Monday, September 16 at 8PM ET/PT.
About The Author: Elizabeth Kwiatkowski
