Who Is ‘Dancing With the Stars’ Pro Rylee Arnold’s Boyfriend Walker Lyons? Meet the BYU Football Star

Rylee Arnold might be dancing her heart out every week on Dancing With the Stars season 35 alongside her celeb partner, Connor Wood, but the pro dancer is in a committed relationship, TYVM!The 21-year-old is currently in a relationship with college football player Walker Lyons, who is away at school while she is filming the show. But that doesn’t mean that they aren’t doing their best to make their relationship work. Here’s everything we know about Walker, including the truly wild story of how he and Rylee got together.Rylee and Walker met because of an Uber driver.Rylee revealed during a December 2024 episode of The Squeeze podcast that she ended up meeting Walker because of a fateful cab ride that stemmed from her not wanting to drive to the mall.“I get in this Uber. It’s this really nice lady,” she recalled. “And we’re just like, talking about dance, and she’s talking about what she does. And also she was like, ‘Okay, this might sound really weird. Don’t take this the wrong way.’”Incredibly enough, Rylee’s driver told her to look up her nephew (Walker) on Instagram and to give him a look over if she was interested. “I looked him up, and I was like, ‘Okay, he’s cute.’ So at that point, I was too scared to really do anything about it, and so I was just kind of like put it in my back pocket.”Rylee’s sisters gave her the reminder to reach out for a date, and upon doing so, she realized she and Walker had a “crazy amount of mutuals,” which makes sense, considering they’re both members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The rest, as they say, is history.As Rylee added, “The fact we hadn’t met before is kind of crazy, but I think we met at the most perfect time in both of our lives.”Rylee and Walker are long distance.In August, Rylee explained in an interview with People that she and Walker are doing long distance, since she’s based in L.A. and he’s away at college in Provo, Utah.“Honestly, we’re just going to hope for the best,” she said. “It’s definitely going to be super hard because it’s my season and his, so we are both going to be very busy. We’re probably not going to see each other for the next three months.”She continued, “But it’s awesome that we both are so busy that we can support each other and be there for each other. It’s going to be a roller coaster, but I know he’s so awesome and supportive, so it’s going to be great.”Walker plays college football.Walker started at USC in 2024, and played as a tight end on the school’s football team. In a September 2024 press conference, he revealed that USC was “always one of [his] favorite schools.”“I’m a West Coast kid from California, and obviously, it’s a really good academic school, and it’s a really good football school, so it kind of checked a lot of my boxes,” he said at the time.He later transferred to Brigham Young University in January 2026 and also plays as a tight end on the school’s football team.Rylee and Walker confirmed their relationship in October of 2024.Rylee shared a series of snaps to Instagram from Walker’s football game, with the first photo in the carousel featuring the pair hugging in the moments after the game’s conclusion.“Is this a hard launch??” she captioned the post. (Yes, it was!)Love their love!!