Ilona Maher is returning to the sport that made her famous.
Maher, 28, announced on Monday, December 2, that she’s joined the Bristol Bears, a top-tier women’s rugby club in Bristol, England. The previous week, the athlete placed second in the Dancing With the Stars finale, losing to ex-Bachelor star Joey Graziadei.
She revealed her exciting news with a video on Instagram, sporting a blue and white Bears uniform as she said she was “so excited to join the Bristol Bears and play premiership women’s rugby with and against some of the best rugby players in the world.”
She added that she’s “looking forward to calling Bristol home as we gear up for rugby World Cup 2025 played here in England.”
Maher’s professional statement is interspersed with footage of outtakes where she displays the goofy humor that’s made her a social media star.
“Are there actually bears here? Because I don’t know what to … are grizzly bears the nice ones? Black bears are the mean ones right?,” Maher asked the silent crew filming her.
She next wanted to know, “is it gonna be this cold the whole time? It’s a little, little chilly.”
Maher also jokingly inquired about whether she’d receive a “roast” after signing with the team.
Meanwhile, she received a wave of congratulations in the comment section of her video post.
“LETS GOOOOO 💪🏽,” Graziadei, 29, wrote, echoing praise from Dancing With the Stars finalist Chandler Kinney, who gushed “LETS GO LO!!!!!!!!!”
Alan Bersten, Maher’s dance partner on the show, said: “I’m so proud of you. And can’t wait to see you kill it.”
Maher previously dedicated one of their performances to her U.S. Women’s National Rugby Sevens teammates, with whom she took home a bronze medal at the 2024 Paris Olympics earlier this year.
“Everyone asks me about how, ‘Oh, how did you get to be so confident? How did you get to be this way? What you do for women is so amazing.’ And I just answer that the reason is because of them,” Maher said in October. “And when you’re around a group of women like that who make you feel so empowered, so beautiful, it translates and it affects you and it changes other people.”
Maher said Monday in an interview with The Guardian that she had reached out to several elite English rugby clubs at the end of 2023. While she was competing on DWTS, Bristol contacted her and helped secure a visa so she could play for the Bears.
“All of a sudden I was getting all of these calls and emails from people saying: ‘We’re hearing you might be eligible to play, you want to come for us?’ OK well I did want to play for you, I did want to do this. I had a lot of other teams calling to come play. I think I stood by Bristol because they did this work and I wanted to stick with them,” she explained.
Maher may play her first game overseas on January 4, according to The Guardian.
“I do feel like the first day of school, I am nervous, I don’t know everybody,” she told the outlet. “It is a stressful thing and it is outside of my comfort zone but I think this is exactly what I love to do and I like to challenge myself in this way.”
