Maksim Chmerkovskiy has learned his lesson about dipping into the Dancing With the Stars celebrity dating pool.
The former DWTS pro recently debunked the suggestion there's an inherent sexual dimension to the relationship between dance partners. "For most of us, it's a job that we go into. If we're single, you know, I definitely went into some seasons open-minded. Whatever, it will be where it will be," he told brother Val and host Oliver Hudson on Sunday's episode of the Sibling Revelry podcast.
"But I personally had one relationship out of 17 seasons that I did. It was very short lived and it was a mistake, all the way in the beginning. So you're going to say that I didn't have attractive partners? No, I just didn't have enough time to even care or think about it," he explained.
Chmerkovskiy was previously briefly engaged to former DWTS pro Karina Smirnoff, and currently shares three children with wife Peta Murgatroyd, another former pro. A rep for Chmerkovskiy confirmed that his comments indicated a celebrity partner, not a fellow pro, but declined to state which partner, citing "how incestual" the family of the cast can be with one another.
Several DWTS pros have been married over the years, including Chmerkovskiy and Murgatroyd, brother Val and Jenna Johnson, and Emma Slater and Sasha Farber, who divorced in 2023. Some pros and their celebrity partners have also tied the knot, including actor Daniel Durant and pro Britt Stewart, and actor Matthew Lawrence and pro Cheryl Burke, who divorced in 2022. Even more have dated without advancing to the altar, like model Brooks Nader and pro Gleb Savchenko, TV host Mario Lopez and Smirnoff, and actress Shannon Elizabeth and pro Derek Hough.
While both Chmerkovskiy siblings acknowledged that romances do blossom on the ballroom floor, Maksim enumerated all the aspects of producing a show like Dancing With the Stars which audiences don't see that make it a less than hospitable climate for love affairs.
Those aspects include "a lot of idle time, a lot of OTFs [on the fly interviews] and soundbites and reshoots and camera blockings and, you know, stress and nerves and competition, you know what I'm saying?"
Chmerkovskiy also pointed out that "the same comment section" that creates rumors about on-set romances that don't actually exist "is going to be calling out a sh---- performance that was missing the passion." So whether a pro dancer and their celeb partner have palpable chemistry or not, they may pay an unfair price in the court of public opinion.
But Chmerkovskiy conceded that sometimes even the celebrity partners get confused as to whether that passion is for real or for the sake of the dance. "Kirstie Alley told me, 'Oh my God, you're so flirty. And I was like, 'What do you mean? In rehearsal, and it's on tape, she's like, 'Yeah, look where your hand is.' I'm like, 'My hand is where?' She's like, 'the small of my back,'" he said.
He then explained to Alley, "I gotta use two hands sometimes to move. It's not because I love you that much, you know?"
