Dancing with the Stars (U.S. season 3)

Dancing with the Stars (season 3)
Promotional poster (made by BLT & Associates)
Country of origin	United States
No. of episodes	20
Release
Original network	ABC
Original release	September 12 – November 15, 2006
Additional information
Celebrity winner	Emmitt Smith
Professional winner	Cheryl Burke
Season chronology
← Previous Season 2 Next → Season 4

Season three of Dancing With the Stars premiered on September 12, 2006 and ended November 15, 2006. The number of couples competing expanded to eleven from the ten in the previous season.

For this season, the scoring system was changed. Fan vote only counted for 25% of the total score and scoring was now translated directly from percentages rather than into ordinals. The judges scores were added up, and each performer was given points based on the percentage of the total points distributed among all performers. (For example, a team received a score of 25. A total of 207 points were awarded to all nine performers. The team received 12.08% of that total, so that team earned 12.08 points. The couple happens to be Sara & Tony.) The fan vote was handled the same way, with the points based on how much of the total fan vote the star received. (So, in the same example, if the team earned 15% of the total fan vote, their grand total is 27.08 points.)

The results shows of this season featured the Slim Fast Dance Challenge, where Tysonia Sichinga and Christian Perry illustrated how exercise such as dancing could aid weight loss. Unfortunately, Tysonia wound up gaining five pounds from what she said, "too much Slim Fast".

The season finale brought in 27.8 million viewers, making it the highest rated Dancing with the Stars season finale to date. Emmitt Smith was the celebrity winner from this season.

The 11 celebrities and professional dancers that competed were:

On October 12, 2006, Sara Evans announced her withdrawal from the competition to be with her kids after filing for divorce from her husband, Craig Schelske. In a "final appearance", a pre-taped interview with Evans about her decision was shown on the October 17 episode.

Willa Ford stated on Headline News' Robin & Company that ABC had invited her to return to the competition, but she declined. At the end of the October 18 results show, after showing the bottom two, it was revealed that there would be no elimination for the week due to Evans' departure. The scores of week six were combined with the scores of week seven for the October 25 elimination. Evans returned for the season finale.

Shanna Moakler, Harry Hamlin & Vivica A. Fox are the only celebrities to not land on this list.