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Emma Slater hit back at a shady TikTok criticizing her boyfriend, fellow “Dancing With the Stars” pro Alan Bersten.
Bersten is dancing with “Step Up” actress Jenna Dewan and replacing her partner, pro Val Chmerkovskiy, for this week’s Dedication Night after the latter was suspended for his controversial comments towards judge Carrie Ann Inaba. Some fans— and even former pro Gleb Savchenko — have made it clear they aren’t happy with the decision.
On Sunday, Slater commented on a TikTok video in which a fan expresses disbelief that Bersten is dancing in place of Chmerkovskiy, given that Bersten was already eliminated during week two of the competition with his partner, Food Network star Giada De Laurentiis.
The fan passionately questions, “Alan is going to dance for Val? Alan? Alan was eliminated,” to which Slater responded, “Yeah that’s what happens, we all step in for each other.”
In a TikTok livestream on Sunday, Savchenko shaded Bersten’s dancing skills and suggested a dancer from the troupe this season should have been given a chance to replace Chmerkovskiy instead.
“Alan, I think he’s Alan. I mean, he’s just not up to the level of dancing, like, period — quality, the technique,” Savchenko said bluntly.
“He’s a good dancer, I guess, for TV, but if we talk about art? Like, creating art? He’s like, eh,” he continued. “I don’t want to like, talk s–t about people, I’m just being honest.”
Savchenko tells Page Six that his comments were coming from a a professional dancer’s perspective, “comparing two dancers with very different styles, techniques, and approaches to partnering.”
“I’ve known Alan for years, I have a lot of love for him, and I respect what he brings to the show,” he tells us. “I was simply sharing my opinion on how different the partnership will look with Alan stepping in for Val. Nothing personal against Alan at all, and I’m looking forward to seeing him and Jenna dance on Tuesday.”
Page Six reached out to Bersten’s rep, but didn’t receive an immediate response.
Savchenko, 43, is clearly team Chmerkovskiy, 40. On the same livestream, he called out Inaba’s “bulls–t” judging.
“I just watched Jenna [Johnson] and Harry [Shum Jr.]’s samba and I think it was a very entertaining dance and was really cool,” he said, referring to pro Johnson’s routine with partner Shum Jr., which stirred up the controversy.
“I don’t think it was an OG samba, it was a bit flat-footed, it was like a hip-hop samba. But I’ll tell you this, if I was a judge instead of Carrie Ann, I would never, ever, ever call out that lift.”
He insisted that Johnson and Shum Jr. did not do a lift, which is what Inaba criticized them for since doing lift is prohibited during a Samba dance.
“Jen didn’t lift him, he didn’t lift Jenna, it wasn’t done in the couple so I think it’s bulls–t,” he declared.
“Probably, Carrie Ann just had to say something because she’s the lifts police of ‘DWTS.’ I think she was just doing her job creating a good TV moment, but I’d say team Val on this one. Period,” he continued.
Meanwhile, Chmerkovskiy has since apologized for his social media post referencing Will Smith infamously slapping Chris Rock at the 2022 Oscars while the actor was defending his wife, Jada Pinkett-Smith. Chmerkovskiy made the post to defend Johnson, whom he’s been married to since April 2019.
Chmerkovskiy told Page Six in a statement Saturday that he “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 said.
He added that he does not want to “be a distraction” from the work Dewan has been putting in the competition.
“Dancing with the Stars” airs Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET on ABC and streams on Disney+.