{"id":806150,"date":"2026-10-18T02:24:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-18T02:24:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/806150\/"},"modified":"2026-10-18T02:24:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-18T02:24:09","slug":"dancing-with-the-stars-pro-suspended-after-will-smith-joke","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/806150\/","title":{"rendered":"Dancing With The Stars pro suspended after Will Smith joke"},"content":{"rendered":"

Val Chmerkovskiy, a long-time professional dancer on ABC\u2019s\u00a0Dancing With The Stars, has been suspended from the show\u2019s production for a week,\u00a0Deadline\u00a0reports<\/a>. Producer BBC Studios handed down the suspension after Chmerkovskiy posted a video to TikTok in which he joked that \u201cYou almost saw Fresh Prince enter the ballroom last night\u201d in reference to judge Carrie Ann Inaba\u2019s harsh critique of a performance from Chmerkovskiy\u2019s wife, fellow dance pro Jenna Johnson.<\/p>\n

The allusion to Will Smith\u2019s infamous behavior at the 2022 Oscars<\/a> was crystal clear\u2014even if Chmerkovskiy has claimed that he wasn\u2019t thinking about that part of Smith\u2019s performance when he posted the video. Specifically, the dancer posted an apology to his Instagram Story on Saturday, suggesting that when he made the initial post his mind was on the bit from the incident where Smith yelled at Rock to keep his wife\u2019s name out of his fucking mouth, and not, say, the part\u2014which might, we feel moved to note, be the single most famous moment in modern Oscars history\u2014when Smith stormed the stage and attempted to physically remove said name from Rock\u2019s mouth through the application of an open-handed slap.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIn a moment where my instinct was to defend my wife,\u201d Chmerkovskiy wrote, \u201cI made a poor decision to reference a meme to \u2018keep my wife\u2019s name\u2019 out of the conversation, without stopping to think through what else that reference could imply, which was genuinely not my intention.\u201d Chmerkovskiy went on to apologize to Inaba, as well as his current celebrity dance partner, Jenna Dewan, who\u2019ll be dancing with pro Alan Bernsten in next week\u2019s episode of the long-running series.<\/p>\n

In its statement on the suspension, BBC Studios wrote that, \u201cThe well-being of everyone who works on Dancing With The Stars is non-negotiable. Val\u2019s 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\u2019s show.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Val Chmerkovskiy, a long-time professional dancer on ABC\u2019s\u00a0Dancing With The Stars, has been suspended from the show\u2019s production…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":806151,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[96,59,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-806150","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-gb","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/806150","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=806150"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/806150\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/806151"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=806150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=806150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=806150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}