Julia Stiles and Ezra Sosa Mark DWTS Run With Tattoos

Julia Stiles and professional dancer Ezra Sosa have turned their Dancing With the Stars partnership into a permanent keepsake. After their elimination from Season 35, the pair revealed matching wrist tattoos made up of eight small stars—one for each time they performed together on the show.

Eight stars for an eighth-place finish

E! News and Just Jared reported that Stiles and Sosa got the tattoos after leaving the competition in eighth place following Disney Night on November 3. Sosa shared the design in a November 5 social video, explaining the meaning behind the row of stars. The simple motif links their final ranking with the dances that carried them through the season.

The matching design was only part of the session. Sosa added a tattoo of a bentwood chair, a nod to the prop used in the duo’s jazz routine inspired by Stiles’ 2001 film Save the Last Dance. Stiles chose the phrase “diva check” in cursive, reflecting the way Sosa would ask how she was doing during their daily rehearsals.

The tattoos were not an impulsive reaction to elimination. Sosa said during the season that the partners had discussed getting ink early in their training, but planned to let their experience determine the eventual design. The resulting set draws from both the competition and the private language they developed while working together.

A tradition for Sosa’s celebrity partners

Sosa has made post-season tattoos part of his Dancing With the Stars story. E! News noted that he previously chose a “Nothing” tattoo connected to his first celebrity partner, Anna Delvey, and later got matching “Just Married” tattoos with Olympic gymnast Jordan Chiles.

For Stiles, the new designs close a television chapter that repeatedly referenced her dance-film history while giving the partnership its own symbol. Rather than recreating an old movie moment one more time, the eight stars record what she and Sosa built together in the ballroom.