They were ballroom’s favorite couple… until they weren’t. S0 why did Emma Slater and Sasha Farber divorce? Their breakup was even hotter than their latin dancing.
Dancing With the Stars is ABC’s popular dance competition where professional dancers team up with celebrities to win the coveted Mirrorball trophy. Emma Slater joined the dance competition in Season 14 as a troupe dancer. After three seasons, she became a professional dancer for Season 17 in September 2013. Her now ex-husband, Sasha Farber, also got his start on DWTS as a troupe member in Season 14 and was promoted to be a professional dancer in Season 17 as well.
Farber and Slater first started dating in 2011. The DWTS couple broke up in 2014 but announced that they were back together shortly after in 2015. A year later, Sasha surprised viewers by proposing to Slater during a live broadcast of Dancing With the Stars in Season 23. They tied the knot in March 2018 at Bella Blanca in Los Angeles. Fellow DWTS pros Lindsay Arnold, Witney Carson and Jenna Johnson served as bridesmaids, while Derek Hough was one of Farber’s groomsmen.
“We are on top of the world right now. It was the most amazing day. It was absolutely amazing. Nothing went wrong. It was brilliant,” Slater told Us Weekly in March 2018 of her nuptials. “It was incredible. I kept thinking, ‘This isn’t normal. This isn’t normal. This should not be happening.’ It went so well and it was a party from the moment we got upstairs to the reception till really late.”
Farber added, “Ed Sheeran left us a little message and Emma didn’t know about it, I surprised her, so it was really cool. It was the perfect night. It was the perfect night with the perfect people.”
So after several years of marriage, why did Dancing With the Stars couple Emma Slater and Sasha Farber divorce in 2023? We have the answer below.
Why did Emma Slater and Sasha Farber divorce?
Slater revealed in Nick Viall’s The Viall Files podcast in August 2023 that she and Faber divorced because she didn’t want to have kids just yet. “It’s really the kid thing,” Slater said in the August 15, 2023, episode. “It’s interesting because I do want to have kids, I just don’t want to delay Sasha’s path in having kids because I know that he is ready for that. I don’t want to talk about him too much because that’s really for him to say, but it’s about kids.”
“We’re still like family, so it isn’t really like the love is not there, it’s actually not that at all,” she also told host Nick Viall. “We’re just at potentially two different places. But the hard part was that the love actually didn’t go [away].”
She continued, “I do want kids. I don’t know what it is, I’m just figuring that out for myself. It’s not something I take lightly and I don’t want to enter into something that I’m not sure about because I would never do that.” She added that she and Farber had conversations about family planning throughout their relationship, but she felt a “resistance” in the last few years. “So, that’s been the real friction and the real hard part,” she added. “It had nothing to do with him. He’s always been very much himself. It’s me that’s found it difficult to understand why I’m feeling different.”
Slater filed for divorce from Farber in February 2023. At the time, the couple cited “irreconcilable differences” as the cause of their split, according to Us Weekly. The official divorce papers came six months after initial reports that the couple had separated. After their public split, the former couple continued to work together as professional choreographers on DWTS. When asked about her current love life, Slater said that she is not seeing anyone at the moment. “Honestly, I have visions of a guy walking into my life … I see like a tall guy with, like, blue eyes and, maybe, British or someone,” she said in the podcast. “Like, that would be ideal. I don’t know why that’s coming to my head. [And] blonde. I don’t know a guy like that.”
Viall then quipped, “So, the exact opposite of your ex.” She responded, “So, Sash I absolutely love and I think he’s gorgeous and I just have so much respect for him, but it’s more of [that] I just see this vision,” she went on.
In an interview with People in May 2024, Slater claimed that she “couldn’t be happier” to be single. “I’ve been traveling a little bit. It’s a bit of a cliché thing to say, but spending time by myself has been the most rewarding thing that I’ve done in the last few months,” she said at the time. “Dancing with the Stars just wrapped a tour a little over a month ago, and since then I’ve spent some really good quality time by myself, and I haven’t done that in years. It has really helped me so much, and I was petrified about doing that to begin with, but I forced myself to do it.” She added, “I’m truly dating myself, and I love that.”
What was Sasha Farber and Emma Slater’s divorce settlement?
Slater and Farber finalized their divorce on May 16, 2024, after a Los Angeles judge officially signed off on the paperwork and made it official, according to court documents obtained by The Sun. Per the split, Slater requested that the court terminate spousal support, which was granted. “Petitioner and Respondent waive, discharge, and release the other party from any and all claims and/or obligations for the payment to either Petitioner or Respondent of spousal support, alimony, or maintenance of any nature whatsoever, both temporary and permanent, which waiver, discharge and release is hereby approved by the court,” the documents stated.
Despite the termination of spousal support, The Sun did report, however, that Farber sent Slater a check for an amount that wasn’t disclosed in the court documents. “Parties stipulate that Respondent (Farber) has already provided Petitioner (Slater) a satisfactory equalization payment on or around February 1, 2024 in order to equalize the division of community property,” the documents state. “The parties expressly intend for the exact amount of the equalization payment to be kept private and confidential and do not wish for the exact amount to be made public record.”
The documents also revealed that both Slater and Farber were responsible for their own fees incurred during the divorce process, including fees for attorneys, accountants, and experts, as well as other costs and expenses. Farber was also granted his and Slater’s $2.6 million home in Studio City, where they lived in during their marriage.
Farber and Slater purchased the home in 2018 for $1.6 million. At the time of their divorce, the property was estimated to be worth $2.6 million. As part of the agreement, the documents also stated that Farber is responsible for any expenses associated with their marital home, including mortgage payments, property taxes, insurance, maintenance, repairs, and capital gains. Slater, for her part, was awarded four differ properties: a home in Los Angeles and three in Pennsylvania, though it’s unclear if she and Farber shared the houses or if they were renting them out.
Each party was also awarded possession of their own “household furniture, furnishings, appliances, electronics, art, jewelry, antiques, art, collections, collectibles, electronics, clothes, accessories and personal effects,” according to the judgement. Slater was also able to keep her 2015 Jeep Wrangler, but had to waive and release her right to Farber’s dance company, Farber Dance. Both parties are also entitled to marriage “all separate inheritance, gifts or bequests” acquired before or during their marriage or after the date of separation.”
Dancing With the Stars is available to stream on Disney Plus.
