A rundown of all of Val’s controversies this season following his elimination from DWTS
He had a one week suspension
Val Chmerkovskiy was just eliminated with his celeb partner, Jenna Dewan, on Dancing With the Stars despite being one of the front-runners of the season. And his run this season was pretty impressive, given all of the controversy that surrounded him over the past few months. So, here’s the complete rundown of all of Val’s DWTS controversies of season 35.
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Val became the first person ever to be suspended from Dancing With the Stars.
A month ago, Val was in the background when Harry Shum Jr. and his wife Jenna were receiving their scores. He could be seen shaking his head after Carrie Ann scored them an eight.
The video was reshared on TikTok, with Val taking to the comment section to publicly air his grievances with the DWTS judge. He commented: “Put some respect on her name. She’s trippin talking to her like that.” In a now-deleted TikTok story, he also wrote: “You almost saw Fresh Prince enter the ballroom last night.”
This has led some to believe he’s referencing the Will Smith slap, and are concerned that Val was trying to insinuate that he was close to slapping Carrie Ann Inaba during DWTS. The TikTok Story has since been deleted.
In a first for the series, Val was then suspended from the show for a week, with Alan Bersten stepping in for his celeb partner Jenna Dewan.
Earlier in October, Val also made a super off-hand comment in an interview with Entertainment Tonight. They were asked how they felt about Carrie Ann Inaba saying that Jenna was “pushing too hard.”
Val and Jenna scored a 21 out of 30 for their samba to Africa by Toto, which received harsh criticism from judge Carrie Ann. She pointed out a stumble that the duo had and ultimately gave them a seven out of 10.
Val shrugged off the comment and said, “I was going pretty hard too,” in response to Denny.
Jenna then raises the question: “What are we going to do if we don’t go hard?” Which is so valid. It’s a competition anyways, they need to be doing the most to survive elimination.
As Jenna is giving a very neutral response of, “I love their perspective. I want to take it and try to work with it,” Val then cuts in.
“I know where [Carrie Ann] parks her car,” he jokingly says. They all laugh it off while Denny chimes in with, “Val’s like, ‘I’ll show you going too hard,’” to which he nods along to.
Val was also accused of cultural appropriation this season by some viewers when he got cornrows for Mariah Carey Night. Val shared a video of his hair getting braided in October, with the caption: “POV: It’s Mariah Carey night on DWTS.”
And people were quick to offer their opinions in the comment section, sharing: “And what about Mariah requires cornrows answer quickly,” with another adding: “Val you know damn well this didn’t need to happen.”
However, come the most recent Dancing With The Stars episode and Val Chmerkovskiy appeared on-screen without the cornrows, which he ended up getting removed before the episode.
He spoke out about his decision to remove the braids in response to a comment left under his video which read: “As a black girl I found no issue with the hair. I was obsessed with the cornrows Val!! Wish you kept them.”
Val responded: “There isn’t. I loved the way they looked and as soon as the season is over you @sistahsbeauty is hooking your boy up. But today is about my partner and I didn’t want to distract from her moment and her dance. Whether in a positive light or negative the light should be on her tn. Regardless I appreciate the love. Always moving with love.”
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Most recently, Val was called out by viewers when his brother, former DWTS pro Maks, was placing bets on Tatyana Ali going home. A viewer DM’s Val a link to a Reddit thread titled, “Why is Maskim promoting gambling on Tatyana Ali’s elimination week after week?” To which he poorly responded with: “Unfortunate. Sorry, I don’t know what this is or how I’m in any way connected to this.”