Whitney Leavitt Knows What You Think of Her, and She's Happy to Prove You Wrong

There is a particular skepticism that follows a reality TV star long after the cameras stop rolling. It is not loud or overt, but quiet and whispered under the breath. It lives in raised eyebrows and qualifying phrases. It is the assumption that visibility must have replaced dedication, that exposure has somehow disqualified ability. Whitney Leavitt understands this skepticism intimately. She has lived inside it, learnt its shape, and proudly outgrown it.

A star of Hulu’s reality series The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives and, most recently, a semi-finalist on ABC’s Dancing With The Stars, Leavitt made her Broadway debut as Roxie Hart in Chicago at the Ambassador Theatre in February. Since her first performance at the Ambassador Theatre, Leavitt has revitalized the show's box office, helping bring in over $1 million a week in grosses.

It's a vindication, a rebuttal towards anyone who doubted her ambition. “I want my name in the papers. I want to be a star. And what’s wrong with that?” she asks, speaking as the character of Roxie but also, unmistakably, for herself. The story Leavitt is telling now is not one of escape from reality television, but of continuity—a performer following an impulse that existed long before an audience was guaranteed, and that would have existed even if television fame never arrived.

“The performance bug has always been a part of me,” Leavitt says, describing a childhood marked not just by ambition but by compulsion. Growing up, she would “create these dances, or put on these music videos for [my] family … and get the cousins together to create something to show all the adults.”

But it was her first time seeing a musical that brought things into focus. “I have a very distinct memory of seeing Hairspray. That was my very first Broadway [musical] I’d ever seen. I just wanted to be up there with them,” she recalls. What stayed with her wasn’t just spectacle, but connection. “I love the camaraderie of a cast… every time I see it, I want to join in on that.”

What started as a small spark ignited into a passionate fire. Dance became her primary language of expression. “It’s taught me a lot of discipline,” she says. “I grew this appreciation to really push myself at a young age, and I’ve carried that continually throughout my life." Her love of performing took her to Brigham Young University, where she studied fine arts with a concentration in dance. Her plan was to commit fully to a path that, at the time, felt linear.

Life, of course, is never a straight road, and alternate routes emerge. Then Whitney Ellis, she meet and married Conner Leavitt while in college and soon after had their first child. However, the performer in her didn’t disappear, it adapted. She joined TikTok and became a member of the now infamous #MomTok. “TikTok became an outlet where I was like, ‘Oh, I can still dance.’ Obviously not to the level that I actually was, but it still filled my cup.” What outsiders might interpret as a pivot away from artistry was, for Leavitt, a way of preserving it.

When The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives brought her into a larger public consciousness, Leavitt had no intention of treating it as an endpoint, but rather a chapter she was still writing. “There’s always more to the story,” she says with a laugh. “I always wanted to entertain. I want to act. Want to be in the movies."

From the jump, Leavitt understood the trade-offs clearly. Despite being portrayed as a “villain” or antagonist early in the series, she was willing to play ball if it meant more down the road. “When I got the opportunity to be on a platform, I said, ‘yes.’ We’ve all got a price to pay. You’ve got to know what that price is. And I was willing to do that. So I got on that platform and created some good TV,” she says with a wink.

Her plan was a success and led her to Dancing with the Stars, where she was paired with dancer and Broadway alum Mark Ballas. “It’s so hyperbolic, and I feel dramatic every time I say it, but [the show] really changed my life,” she explains. She credited Ballas with pushing her past her comfort zone. “I just didn’t know what was possible, and he was just like, ‘Well, why couldn’t it be?”

What followed felt less like a transition but a collision. Days after being eliminated from DWTS, the opportunity to audition for Chicago was presented to her. “Literally right after,” she says, eyes wide and looking off to recall the whirlwind experience. “It’s been go, go, go!”

Going from dancing for a television audience to a Broadway audience, Leavitt has discovered that Chicago demands full, sustained attention. “I knew it was going to be hard, but I didn’t know it was going to be this hard,” she admits. “We have been running this show every day, and even just doing that is exhausting,” she says, giggling and throwing her head back. But what motivates Leavitt is the excitement of exploring and creating her version of the iconic “cute chorine.” She says her Roxie Hart is not an act of mimicry; it’s an act of understanding. “She knows what she wants, which I love,” Leavitt says. The admiration is pointed and personal: “She’s ambitious… she’s curious… she just goes after it.”

Ambition, especially in women, is still treated as something that needs justification. Leavitt refuses that framing. And it is that drive that has helped a childhood dream come true. During the interview, Leavitt is handed the February Chicago Playbill, with her as the production’s cover. The emotional weight of the moment crystallized with the magazine, tangible and physical proof of her accomplishment in her hand. “It just doesn’t feel real,” she tries to utter, but is clearly stunned and trying to hold back tears. Then memory intervened: a social media post from five years earlier, after the birth of her daughter. “In my caption, I said, ‘Fun fact: I always wanted to be on Broadway.’ As if it would never be a reality, but…it is,” she says, still staring down at the Playbill, holding it delicately in her hands.

For audiences watching Whitney Leavitt step into Roxie Hart’s spotlight, the thrill won’t be in surprise. It will be in recognition; the feeling that this performer has been walking toward this stage for a very long time and has finally arrived. No apologies. Says Leavitt: “I just want to be present, and I just want to enjoy every single minute of it."

Leavitt's initial run at the Ambassador Theatre continues now through March 15, and she will return to the role of Roxie Hart March 23–May 3, reuniting with her Dancing with the Stars dance partner Mark Ballas, as Billy Flynn.