Val Chmerkovskiy has resumed his role as part of the Dancing With the Stars season 35 cast after his one-episode suspension after he seemed to allude to Will Smith’s infamous Oscars slap while commenting on Carrie Ann Inaba’s judging of his wife, Jenna Johnson, The Hollywood Reporter has learned.
Chmerkovskiy is back in rehearsals as of today and will make his return to the ballroom with next week’s horror-centric episode.
And he’s set to finish out the remainder of the season alongside his celebrity partner, Jenna Dewan. The pro dancer did not participate in Tuesday’s Dedication Night, and Dewan instead performed with Alan Bersten.
Dancing With the Stars production company BBC Studios and ABC did not respond to THR‘s request for comment.
Dewan and Bersten earned a 37/40 during the most recent episode for their Viennese waltz to “Unchained Melody” by The Righteous Brothers, performed in honor of the Step Up star’s mother.
Chmerkovskiy’s absence from Dancing With the Stars was lightly addressed during Dedication Night, with co-host Alfonso Ribeiro merely saying at the top of the episode, “Val is not with us this week.” During Dewan’s video package ahead of her performance, a timestamp was shown for late Friday night, as the actress and Bersten discussed him subbing in without mention of Chmerkovskiy or the controversy. No footage of Chmerkovskiy and Dewan rehearsing was shown.
BBC Studios announced Saturday that Chmerkovskiy had been suspended for one episode, sharing in a statement, “The well-being of everyone who works on Dancing With the Stars is non-negotiable. 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.”
He drew controversy for an allusion he made to Smith slapping Chris Rock at the 2022 Oscars while defending his wife, fellow pro Johnson, following comments Inaba made during the Super Bowl Night episode. “You almost saw Fresh Prince enter the ballroom last night,” Chmerkovskiy wrote in a TikTok Story posted last Wednesday.
After Johnson and her partner Harry Shum Jr. performed a samba to Usher’s “Yeah!,” Inaba told her, “I think you need to put more content in your dances. Especially because [Harry’s] so good, I want to see you challenge yourself a little bit more in the vein of what we’re looking for. And there was a lift.” Johnson responded to Inaba’s comments by asking, “A lift?”
Inaba responded to Chmerkovskiy’s Fresh Prince remarks on Instagram Thursday, writing “So this is what we are doing now?” while resharing a screenshot of a Page Six post featuring the dancer’s comment, alongside a split image of Smith and Chmerkovskiy.
Chmerkovskiy later apologized to the longtime Dancing With the Stars judge in an Instagram statement on Thursday. He wrote, in part, “I want to apologize from the bottom of my heart for my recent post. 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 also released a statement addressing his hiatus from the Dancing With the Stars ballroom for Dedication Night, writing, “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.”