‘DWTS’ pro Val Chmerkovskiy suspended for ‘inappropriate’ judge comment

“Dancing With the Stars” pro Val Chmerkovskiy has been yanked off next week’s show after a social media joke that appeared aimed at judge Carrie Ann Inaba’s critique of his wife and fellow dancer Jenna Johnson’s routine.

“You almost saw Fresh Prince enter the ballroom last night,” Chmerkovskiy quipped on TikTok after Inaba dinged Johnson for including an illegal lift in her samba performance with Harry Shum Jr. during last Tuesday’s show.

The joke apparently referenced the infamous 2022 “Oscars Slap,” when Will Smith strode up to the stage during the Academy Awards and slapped host Chris Rock across the face for making an insensitive joke about Smith’s wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, and yelled, “Keep my wife’s name out of your f—king mouth!”

On camera, Johnson graciously accepted Inaba’s assessment after some initial confusion during which Inaba read aloud the definition of a lift, which are not allowed during samba routines, to underscore her point. Backstage Johnson broke down in tears, sources told Cosmopolitan.

Many called Chmerkovskiy out online over what they saw as the implication he might do the same. Chmerkovskiy quickly took down the offending TikTok, but not before fan screenshots proliferated and Inaba got wind of it.

“So this is what we are doing now?” Inaba posted alongside photos of Chmerkovskiy and Smith.

Chmerkovskiy quickly rued the remark.

“I want to apologize from the bottom of my heart for my recent post,” he wrote on Instagram, according to Deadline. “I have reached out to Carrie Ann to apologize directly and personally, and I also want to apologize publicly as I understand my words affect so many outside of our internal DWTS family. I should have never made the reference that I did and I deeply regret it.”

Chmerkovskiy first appeared on “Dancing With the Stars” in 2006 and became a staff pro in 2011, the same year he won Season 20 first place with partner Rumer Willis.

He also snagged a first-place mirror ball trophy in 2016, partnering with U.S. Olympic gymnast Laurie Hernandez for Season 23, and again in 2023 when he and Xochitl Gomez danced their way to the top of the Season 32 leaderboard. He and Johnson met when she joined the pro cast in 2014, got engaged in 2018 and married in 2019.

BBC Studios, which produces the show, said it had no choice but to suspend the dancer.

“The well-being of everyone who works on Dancing with the Stars is non-negotiable,” BBC Studios said in a statement to multiple media outlets Saturday. “Val’s social media post was inappropriate and does not reflect the values or standards expected of anyone connected with the show. As a result, he will not participate in next week’s show.”

Chmerkovskiy followed up.

“Hi everyone. As you may have seen in the news, I won’t be in the ballroom this week,” he said in an Instagram story. “In a moment where my instinct was to defend my wife, I made a poor decision to reference a meme to ‘keep my wife’s name’ out of the conversation, without stopping to think through what else that reference could imply, which was genuinely never my intention. Carrie Ann certainly didn’t deserve to get caught in the middle of my bad judgment, and I hate that she was.”

He praised partner Jenna Dewan of “The Rookie” for her “incredible work” and concluded, “Please send Carrie Ann, Jenna, and the whole DWTS family lots of love during Dedication Night. I’ll be watching and cheering everyone on!!”

Pro Alan Bersten, who was eliminated earlier in the season, will lead Dewan in a Viennese waltz, dedicated to the actress’s mother.