It’s official: Dancing with the Stars season 32 has crowned a new winning duo! Actor Xochitl Gomez and her pro partner Val Chmerkovskiy were awarded the Len Goodman Mirrorball Trophy—which was officially renamed in September 2023 following the death of longtime head judge Len Goodman—on December 5 during the series finale of the hugely popular show.
Cute pic of the newest champs, incoming:
“It’s unbelievable,” the actor gushed to People following the finale. “I didn’t see it coming. I went into this whole competition thing thinking, you know, if I make it to week five, that’d be awesome, and so to be here and to have this trophy is just crazy. I’m really proud of us.”
“It felt really good,” chimed in Val before adding, “It’s a little weird, you know, because you put so much work into something and then it’s like here’s a trophy and then it’s over. The feeling is, obviously pride and joy for ourselves, but also a little bit of sadness that it’s over.”
As for where they’re each going to keep their shiny new trophies, Xochitl revealed, “I have a little tiny room because I ended up moving places, so I have this little tiny room and I have this stray cat that I sleep with every night, and I have one drawer that lives literally direct center of my bed, so I’m going to put it right there so I can look at it every night with my cat.”
Meanwhile, Val—who btw won his first Mirrorball Trophy in 2015 with Rumer Willis and his second the following year with Laurie Hernandez—dished that, “One of them I have in my guest bathroom and the other one is in my brother’s storage somewhere. And so this one’s gonna go on my wife’s [fellow DWTS pro Jenna Johnson] cabinet just because, you know, I wouldn’t have been able to have this without her.”
“We have a newborn, and she really held it down for the entire season,” he added. I’m not crying, you are!
Energy in the ballroom was high from the very beginning of the three-hour-long episode, which began with co-hosts Julianne Hough and Alfonso Ribeiro celebrating the five final duos—a first for the show—as they prepared to compete for the winning title.
The cast then performed an opening dance number, which featured the season 32 pros and the return of their celebrity partners as well as the five finalists emerging from the ceiling on disco balls. We were also treated to a dance from season 31 winners Charli D’Amelio and Mark Ballas, a live musical performance from finalist Jason Mraz, and two truly iconic performances from each pair.
However, in the end, Alfonso and Julianne revealed the final placements for the season and announced that the couple in fifth place was Alyson Hannigan and Sasha Farber. Then came fourth place, which belonged to Charity Lawson and Artem Chigvintsev; third place, which Ariana Madix and Pasha Pashkov nabbed; and second, which went to Jason Mraz and Daniella Karagach.
It was then, during the finale’s last few moments, that Xochitl and Val were named the winners of season 32. Through her tears, the actor cried, “Oh my gosh!” as she and Val were lifted onto their costars’ shoulders and confetti fell from the ceiling.
Mood: 😭😭😭😭
Assistant news editor
Gretty Garcia is the assistant news editor at Cosmopolitan, where she covers all things news, entertainment, and pop culture. Before joining Cosmo, Gretty was a social strategist for Mrs. Dow Jones and a features and special projects editor at Editorialist. She holds an MS from the Columbia Journalism School and studied art history at Harvard College.
