Ali Landry turned down “DWTS” because she worried being ‘intimate’ with other men would jeopardize her marriage
Ali Landry turned down “DWTS” because she worried being ‘intimate’ with other men would jeopardize her marriage
Raechal ShewfeltFri, September 4, 2026 at 7:22 PM UTC
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Ali Landry in August 2026Credit: Stefanie Keenan/GettyKey Points -
Ali Landry said she turned down an offer to do Dancing With the Stars.
The model and actress said, at the time, she didn’t want to “jeopardize my relationship” with future husband, director Alejandro Monteverde, whom she married in 2006.
Landry’s 2004 marriage to Mario Lopez ended after a cheating scandal.
Ali Landry did it — or rather, didn’t do it — for love.
The former Miss USA 1996 said she’s turned down many reality shows, including Dancing With the Stars, which she declined, in to protect her relationship with director Alejandro Monteverde, whom she married in 2006. The couple shares three teenage kids.
“I think the first one I probably said no to was Dancing With the Stars,” Landry told Entertainment Weekly’s sister publication, PEOPLE. “That one was a no for me at the time because I had gone through a terrible public breakup and I had just met my husband.”
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Landry infamously split from Mario Lopez two weeks after they married in 2004, after discovering that he had been unfaithful over six years of dating.
“We were at the time, I believe, engaged,” Landry said of her relationship with Monteverde, at the time she received the offer. “And Dancing With the Stars, being in such close proximity to the opposite sex and the dancing... it’s very intimate,” she said. “I did not want to do anything to jeopardize my relationship with my husband.”
Landry continued, “People pass these things off as if it’s no big deal, you’re just dancing. But that’s a lie. You spend all your time with the person and you’re that physically close — feelings arise. And I think I was so sensitive because of that breakup that I was hyper-aware of that. I was not going to sugarcoat any of that.”
(The latest cast of DWTS, which was announced this week, features movie and TV stars, Olympians, podcasters, and more.)
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Landry’s previously said that she’s thankful for what happened with the Saved by the Bellalum.
“I look back on that situation, which was horrible, and I thank God every single day, because it changed me as a woman. It changed the way… I walk through this world, 100 percent,” she told Lacey Leone McLaughlin on the Unfolding Leadership podcast in March 2022. “I am so much better because that happened. I am forever grateful for that.”
Alejandro Monteverde and Ali Landry in 2024Credit: Slaven Vlasic/Getty
She became more religious because of what happened with Lopez, and met Monteverde in a theology class.
While Landry isn’t a fan of reality TV in general, at least for herself, she has appeared on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.
“A lot of my friends still to this day are on it,” the Eve star told PEOPLE. “And I was always there at their parties and knew all the girls, still do. But when you start looking at the quality of your life... I guess I do a lot of internal work. I meditate, I pray, I journal. I’m pretty clear about what I would like my life to look like. And the main keywords for me are peace, truth and joy. And that did not fit into what I wanted.”
The decision was a “hard one,” but she’s glad she made it.
Entertainment Weekly has reached out to Dancing With the Stars.
on Entertainment Weekly
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
