Popular “Dancing With the Stars” pro Val Chmerkovskiy didn’t think he’d ever dance again after undergoing serious neck surgery.
“I had a five, a three level fusion on my neck. So I have a five inch titanium plate in my neck right now with eight screws in it. And, you know, that’s the kind of surgery and that kind of injury, you like, you don’t dance anymore. You know, like right now, you stop. You get that surgery and then you never dance again. So that was a hard time recovering from that,” Chmerkovskiy said on the December 3 episode of the “Lightweights” podcast.
The 3-time Mirrorball Trophy winner went on to say that his doctors told him that he wouldn’t be able to dance again.
“I had an incredible doctor and he was like, ‘you will be limited. You know, probably a good 50 percent of your mobility in your neck will not be there anymore,'” he explained.
Not only did Chmerkovskiy dance again, but he competed on season 32 of “Dancing With the Stars” and won the Mirrorball alongside Xochitl Gomez.
Val Chmerkovskiy Previously Said He Had Surgery
In March 2023, Chmerkovskiy shared a video of memories over the year of his life, in honor of his birthday. Included in the video was footage of him in a hospital bed with a neck brace on.
“Thank you friends and fans and family for the beautiful wishes,” Chmerkovskiy wrote on Instagram. “This last year I had a son and lost a grandfather. Felt better than ever and almost lost my ability to move. I had fallen deeper in love with my wife and had my heart ripped open by a failing marriage elsewhere,” he added.
Chmerkovskiy didn’t share details about his surgery in that post, but shared some more photos a year later.
“This time last year I went through some stuff,” he captioned a post about his surgery in February 2024.
It was Chmerkovskiy’s older brother, Maks Chmerkovskiy, who shared what happened.
“Val did have a massive situation where, right around the time when Rome was born, he had a really serious neck impingement that stemmed from his previous season … to where it was just ‘go, go, go’ and no rehab, and you kind of go on injured and whiplash, but kind of on the back burner because we’re trying to win here,” Maks Chmerkovskiy told Us Weekly.
In one of his most candid interviews, Chmerkovskiy explained a bit about his neck surgery and its severity on “Lightweights.”
“I had a basically I had three discs, you know, squeezing through my spinal cord. And I lost my ability to move my left arm. And I got an MRI and my doctor was like, you’re going to be paralyzed if you don’t get the surgery,” Chmerkovskiy said.
“That was crazy to come back from that and then win the following season, that same year. With Xochitl was like insane to me, you know. And again, I didn’t really publicize it as much. I also wasn’t sure if I was gonna come back,” he admitted.
Chmerkovskiy explained that his injury stemmed from years of grinding on the dance floor. Despite the surgery, however, Chmerkovskiy says that he’s still in pain.
“I’m in constant state of discomfort, I’m always aching, I’m always mindful. And what you see me do on our show is now, you know, I’m adjusting,” he shared.
