Maks Chmerkovskiy Fires Back at DWTS Alum’s Claim He ‘Hated’ Her: ‘Bad Boy Reputation Was Overblown’
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Was there drama behind the scenes on Dancing With the Stars between Maks Chmerkovskiy and Bristol Palin? The former DWTS contestant claims Maks “hated” her, but the dance pro denies it.
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During an appearance on the August 26 episode of Cheryl Burke’s Sex, Lies, and Spray Tans podcast, Palin, who competed on Season 11 and Season 15 of DWTS, shared her take on Chmerkovskiy.
When asked which DWTS competitors “rolled their eyes at you and Mark when you would get saved during elimination,” she responded, “Oh, Maks. Oh, he hated me so much.” She noted that she felt “tension from him.”
Palin explained, “[It was] probably just because we kept going through. I mean, he was real nice at the beginning, but it was one of those things where as we kept going through…”
She added, “I definitely felt the tension from him. I forgot about that. Because the further we went along in it, the more it was like, ‘Oh gosh, okay.'”
Chmerkovskiy and celebrity partner Brandy finished in fourth and were eliminated from DWTS, while Palin and Ballas escaped elimination for nine weeks and placed third.
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Chmerkovskiy set the record straight that he never had any negative feelings about Palin. “Maks doesn’t hate anybody. For her to say that would be a mischaracterization of his feelings. I think he and everyone else in America, 14 years ago, thought that he and Brandy were on their way to winning that year, if not coming into the finals. So there was a bit of disappointment when she leapfrogged him into the finals. It’s a competition. He’s very competitive and took it seriously,” Chmerkovskiy’s rep told Heavy.
Chmerkovskiy’s rep also confirmed to People, “Maks doesn’t hate anybody and he’s never hated Bristol. His bad boy reputation was overblown by the media at the time.”
“He was really good at dancing and he was really competitive, which are two important qualities you need to be on Dancing with the Stars,” the dancer’s rep added. “Maks was disappointed because he and Brandy were on their way to win that year. He and everyone else in America were taken by surprise.”
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Will Chmerkovskiy return to Dancing With the Stars? Never say never. He seems more open to the idea lately. In a July 2024 interview with Hello! magazine, he was asked if he would like to return to the ballroom.
“I mean, yeah. Why not? I would love to,” Chmerkovskiy said. He clarified, “Not in the sense of like, ‘Would I love to do Dancing with the Stars.’ I wouldn’t mind today because my mentality’s different, my body’s different, my feelings about everything sort of life are different, and the outlook on opportunities, possibilities, the reality, the things that make you happy.”
Chmerkovskiy added, “I’ve done so many things today by now that, again, I have data of like what’s best for me. What’s best for my family. What’s best for my psyche. What’s best for my heart, my soul, not just for my pocket. And so from that standpoint, if the opportunity comes and it’s the right type of opportunity, and by that I mean, there’s a reason and a need for me to be back, I would love the opportunity.”
Dancing with the Stars streams on Disney+.
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