Who is Peloton Instructor and ‘DWTS’ Contestant Cody Rigsby?
Peloton instructor Cody Rigsby is going to be on Dancing With the Stars season 30. The new season begins September 20 with an all-new lineup of celebrities ranging from YouTubers to wrestlers. Tyra Banks will return to host this season after an absence last year in favor of Tom Bergeron and Erin Andrews.
JoJo Siwa will be partnered with a female pro, marking the first time the show has had a same-sex couple. Another first is the first Peloton instructor, Cody Rigsby. Let’s take a look at Rigsby and how he came to be on Dancing With the Stars.
Cody Rigsby is a Peloton instructor
Rigsby will be the first Peloton instructor to compete on the show. But before joining Peloton, Rigsby was a professional dancer. As a child in Greensborough, North Carolina, he would learn the dance moves in music videos and then teach them to girls in his school. He didn’t have any formal lessons until he was 18. That’s when he started going to free ballet classes at a community center.
Rigsby moved to New York City for an internship program at the Broadway Dance Center. He also danced at bars and for the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show. He soon found jobs as a dancer for Katy Perry and Pitbull and worked at The Box, a music, theater, and burlesque venue located in New York.
Rigsby works with Peloton
Rigsby joined Peloton soon after the company was established when a friend mentioned the company was looking for instructors and paying them $150 a class. Rigsby didn’t like the serious style of the other trainers, so he played to his own strengths. He developed his own unique style that resonated with Peloton users.
Rigsby now has more than 860,000 followers on Instagram, which is more than Peloton’s other major stars, including Ally Love, who has 776,000 followers, and Alex Toussaint, who has 495,000 followers.
Rigsby is lacing up his dancing shoes
Being a former dancer, Rigsby certainly has a leg up on the competition for this season. Other notable former dancers and athletes who have won the competition in the past are Olympic figure skater Adam Rippon and his pro partner Jenna Johnson.
Rippon and Johnson went up against NFL star Josh Norman and his pro partner Sharna Burgess, as well as Tonya Harding and her partner, Sasha Farber. Rigsby isn’t the only competitor this season with some dancing shoes to dust off. Melanie C of the Spice Girls has a dance background as well as JoJo Siwa.
The cast for season 30 will also include wrestler Michael Gregory Mizanin AKA “The Miz” of WWE Wrestling as well as Cobra Kai star Martin Kove among others. It will certainly be an exciting season with a few firsts to look forward to. Dancing With the Stars has been a fixture on TV for the last 16 years, and with good reason.
The show has a winning formula that the producers have not really changed since it first aired 16 years ago. Through a series of performances and eliminations, a winner is chosen by the judges. Throughout the process, celebrities are shown doing the work and learning the choreography.
For some, the process is easy and they catch on quickly. For others, they have to work a little harder. Daily rehearsals for the show can run several hours and the work is grueling. For the pro partners, it’s just another day at the office. For those that have never danced professionally, it can be exhausting.
It will be interesting to see who wins this season. But as always, there can be only one winner.
