In season one of America’s Sweethearts: Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders, viewers of the instantly viral Netflix docuseries were enthralled in the lore, pageantry, and drama of the iconic squad. But it was two dancers who didn’t even make the team that turned out to be the show’s biggest stars.
With cameras following, Charly Barby and Kelly Villares auditioned for the Dallas Cowboys cheerleading squad in the summer of 2023, making it through solo auditions and the team’s long and taxing training camp. Both women were new to the scene and new to the South (Barby is from California, Villares from New Jersey), which gave them an endearing, fish-out-of-water flair. By the time they were both cut during training camp, viewers felt the rejection right along with them.
Don’t worry, though, their time on the show isn’t over. Because, as viewers will see in season two, the duo trained together for the next year, tried out again—and made it.
“It was amazing, it was a dream every day,” Villares tells Glamour of her first year as a DCC. “We’re now going into our second year, but we still are in awe of the people that we’re around, the opportunities that we get. We did so many cool things just in that one year, and those are memories to last a lifetime.”
Season two of America’s Sweethearts: Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders picks up with the duo as they head into their second training camp nearly a year after being cut. As they tell the cameras, they both had a singleminded focus on making the team this time around and became inseparable best friends in the process.
As Barby explains, they both went back to their respective home states after their time on the show, working at dance studios, saving up money, and training for their next shot. Eventually, Barby moved to Dallas in January so she could focus on taking DCC prep classes five days a week.
“Kelly came in and stayed with me literally every single weekend, and it was so much fun, but definitely a lot of training on both of our parts and a lot of full commitment to wanting to make the team,” she tells me.
The women understand that it may be hard for some to understand their level of commitment, essentially putting their entire life on pause for a year to train for one, singular goal. Villares even kept her hair brown after the DCC stylists dyed it from blonde during the team’s training camp “makeover,” a change that may not seem like a lot, but in many ways symbolized her commitment.
“It was a hard adjustment, especially after being released,” she says. “I look at myself in the mirror, and I’m like, oh my God, I just want to make the team. And now I’m a brunette!” Now, she says, “I would never go back blonde.”
For Villares and Barby, it was never a question of whether or not they would try again. They see it more as, why would we not?
“We were like, we’re young,” Villares says. “This job is once in a lifetime…and it’s almost like grabbing it as the opportunity arises.”
During their second training camp in the summer of 2024, the show premiered on Netflix. Both of them were shocked to discover that they had such prominent storylines, and it only added to the gravity of being in the middle of trying out again.
“We watched us be released from training camp just as we made training camp [for 2024] three days prior,” Villares says, “It was a lot to take in because we’re like, wow, this could happen again. You don’t know what the future holds. I mean, it was cool, but very emotional.”
Barby’s road to tryouts in 2024 was made even more complicated by a shocking health scare. In May 2024 after experiencing worrying symptoms, she was diagnosed with a pulmonary embolism on her left lung, an incredibly dangerous, life-threatening blood clot. Her recovery was intense and, as she discusses on the show, she wasn’t back to her full strength by the time tryouts rolled around. But she pushed through.
Reflecting on it now, Barby tells me she didn’t completely realize the seriousness of her condition even when she was discussing it on the show because it was so recent. After enduring a year of testing and recovery, she says she has a greater appreciation of what she went through.
“It taught me that I’m someone who will dance no matter what. I can push my health away,” she says. “But it’s so important to make sure that you’re healthy. If your body’s telling you something, you need to get it checked out, and you need to go to a doctor. That’s definitely something that I learned.”
Still, she has no regrets.
“I would’ve done anything to be on the team, and if it meant dancing with a half-diseased lung, then it did,” she says. “I worked too hard to not let something like that affect me. I think it was really mind over body at that point.”
So when Villares and Barby finally make it onto the team in season two, it’s an earned moment of complete triumph. After all, who doesn’t love seeing a good comeback story?
“I remember just my body was limp,” says Barby. “The slow motion scene of us crying is just so exactly how we felt in the moment.”
While they say they’re excited to watch these scenes in season two, as well as the rest of the series, they don’t have a ton of time. The duo is currently in training camp for the 2025 season, this time as second-year veterans.
“I cannot believe we went through all this, and now we’re here a year later,” says Barby, adding, “I feel like we’ve even grown so much from last year versus this year going in mentally for training camp. It’s a very crazy, full-circle experience.”
The post Charly Barby and Kelly Villares Are the Comeback Queens of America’s Sweethearts: Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders appeared first on Glamour.
