A Closer Look at the New Dancing with the Stars Contestants (Including Tinashe)

By Ashley Reese | September 12, 2018 | 3:10pm

Entertainment TV

Luna Lovegood, an Instagram honey, and Tinashe?

The cast for Season 27 of Dancing with the Stars was announced on Good Morning America on Wednesday. I’ve never watched more than two-minute tidbits of Dancing with the Stars in all my 27 years on this Earth, but the lineup for the upcoming season has enough wild cards thrown in to pique my interest.

Evanna Lynch

Lynch played Luna Lovegood in the Harry Potter movies, and she was arguably one of the best casting decisions of the entire franchise. Lynch was a fan of the books from childhood and relied on them for a sense of escapism when she was in and out of hospitals as a preteen struggling with anorexia. She wrote a letter to Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling about how much the series—and Lovegood’s character in particular—meant to her, and Rowling wrote back, kicking off what became years of correspondence between the two. Rowling had no hand, however, in Lynch landing the role as her favorite character. Lynch auditioned for the role on a whim, her previous acting experience limited to school plays, and beat out over 15,000 would-be Luna Lovegoods. She was such a natural that Harry Potter producer David Hayman once said, “The others could play Luna; Evanna Lynch is Luna.” Rowling has also deemed Lynch the perfect Luna, which is high fucking praise, man.

These days, Lynch still acts and is a very passionate about being a vegan on Instagram and on her podcast, The Chick Peeps.

Oh, and she loves her cat. A lot.

Tinashe

Oh, Tinashe.

That literally sums up about 90 percent of the think pieces and critical reviews about the singer who people can agree has a lot of potential, but keeps falling flat. She was propelled into popularity with her 2014 banger “2 On,” but it’s still considered her peak four years later.

She’s reckoned with a highly anticipated and much delayed sophomore album that failed to truly excite, and despite legitimate fuckery stemming from her label, RCA—putting her on the back burner and attempting to pigeonhole her into the alternative R&B category when her music is pure pop—Tinashe’s attempts to blame colorism for her fledging success didn’t exactly endear her to many black women who were rooting for her.

Still, good for Tinashe for getting that DWTS spot. Collect the bag, sis. Get that ABC coin! Maybe this is the start of a new chapter in the story of Tinashe. Who knows? Take it away, Jezebel Deputy Editor Julianne Shepherd!

Alexis Ren

Alexis Ren is an Instagram model and teen girls love her!

She’s very thin!

She’s very tan!

She’s very hot?!

I don’t know. She 12.7 million Instagram followers, so something is working in her favor.

I only know about Ren because my old coworkers used to talk about her relationship with an obnoxious Instagram model/YouTube celeb named Jay Alvarrez.

This is Jay Alvarrez.

Alvarrez is famous for making videos of himself (and others) jumping out of planes and living ~cuhraaaaazy~ lifestyles with EDM playing in the background; island hopping, traveling the world, bubble baths in villas, that kind of shallow aspirational shit.

Take a look at the kind of videos Ren was featured in back in the day:

LOL.

LOL: The Redux.

But Ren and Alvarrez had a messy break up, and the teens lost their #relationshipgoals gods. Sad!

I’m going to be honest, I don’t really know what Ren is doing these days other than posing on the gram, but I suppose she’s going to start dancing a lot soon.

Other DWTS cast members include Facts of Life veteran Nancy McKeon, former football player DeMarcus Ware, and Disney Channel star Milo Manheim. The new season will premiere on Monday, September 24 at 8 p.m. ET on ABC.