Dancing with the Stars (U.S. season 13)

Dancing with the Stars returned for its thirteenth season on September 19, 2011. Carrie Ann Inaba, Len Goodman and Bruno Tonioli returned as the judges, and Tom Bergeron and Brooke Burke Charvet returned as hosts. Twelve couples competed in this season. Starting this season, Alan Dedicoat, the announcer, introduces Harold Wheeler and his band after the introduction of the remaining competitors.

Actor J.R. Martinez won the competition with over 9 million votes. A first time in Dancing with the Stars history were the winner was millions ahead in votes by the runner up. J.R. Martinez won over reality TV star Rob Kardashian and actress Ricki Lake who took 2nd and 3rd place, respectively.

Overview
Nine professional partners&mdash;Derek Hough, Maksim Chmerkovskiy, Cheryl Burke, Tony Dovolani, Mark Ballas, Lacey Schwimmer, Karina Smirnoff, Anna Trebunskaya, and Kym Johnson&mdash;returned this season. Maksim's brother, Valentin Chmerkovskiy, made his debut competing as a professional. Peta Murgatroyd and Tristan MacManus, part of Season 12's troupe of dancers, also became professional partners for the first time. Louis van Amstel did not compete as a professional, but participated in a new segment called "Ballroom Battles", which would be canceled on November 7. The troupe also returns with 3 returning troupe members, Teddy Volynets, Kiki Nyemchek, and Oksana Dmytrenko, and 3 new members, Sasha Farber, Sharna Burgess, and Dasha Chesnokova. This is also the first season where none of the original pros from Season 1 competed.

The celebrity cast was revealed during an episode of Bachelor Pad on August 28, 2011. The twelve professionals were revealed on August 31, 2011 during Good Morning America. Ryan O'Neal was planning on competing as a celebrity, but did not feel he was up to it after a recent knee surgery and so Carson Kressley stepped in to replace him. O'Neal hopes to compete in a future season. From the start, controversy erupted over the inclusion of Chaz Bono, the child of famous parents Sonny and Cher. His appearance resulted in backlash from the conservative supporters of the show, who even threatened to boycott due to his transgender status. Despite the criticism, Bono has received strong support from the LGBT community. It was stated in LGBT Weekly that "Bono has become the transgender community’s living symbol of hope, strength and defiance against vitriolic hate. When ABC Television announced that Bono would appear on DWTS, he faced vile slurs and death threats from a group of trans-phobic women and men". The controversy did lead producers to hire extra security protection for his time on the show.

Couples
The 12 celebrities and professional dancers who competed were:

Scoring chart

 * Red numbers indicate the lowest score for each week.
 * Green numbers indicate the highest score for each week.
 * indicates the couple eliminated that week.
 * indicates the returning couple that finished in the bottom two.
 * indicates the returning couple that was the last to be called safe.
 * indicates the winning couple.
 * indicates the runner-up couple.
 * indicates the third-place couple.

Average score chart
This table only counts for dances scored on a traditional 30-points scale (the scores for the Cha-Cha-Cha Relay dance are not included).