{"id":255786,"date":"2025-10-28T03:03:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-28T03:03:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/255786\/"},"modified":"2025-10-28T03:03:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-28T03:03:11","slug":"former-dancing-with-the-stars-pros-say-taylor-swift-dancer-has-absolutely-no-business-being-cast-on-the-show","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/255786\/","title":{"rendered":"Former \u2018Dancing With the Stars\u2019 Pros Say Taylor Swift Dancer Has \u2018Absolutely No Business\u2019 Being Cast on the Show"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former Dancing With the Stars pros Maksim Chmerkovskiy and Peta Murgatroyd didn\u2019t dance around their feelings on the subject of Taylor Swift<\/a> backup dancer Jan Ravnik being cast as a professional dancer on the show.<\/p>\n

On a recent episode of Murgatroyd\u2019s The Penthouse With Peta podcast, she and Chmerkovskiy \u2014 who both previously served as resident pros in past seasons of the competition series and have been married since 2017 \u2014 questioned Ravnik\u2019s place on the program. After accompanying the pop superstar on her global Eras Tour for nearly two years, the Slovenian-born dancer joined the cast<\/a> of DWTS as a coach in August.<\/p>\n

More from Billboard<\/p>\n

\u201cJan has absolutely no business being a pro on Dancing With the Stars,\u201d Chmerkovskiy said frankly. \u201cThere\u2019s zero foundation, technique, quality, understanding of the partnership.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBro, I\u2019m getting emotional,\u201d he continued, rejecting Murgatroyd\u2019s claim that Ravnik should be given \u201cgrace\u201d as it\u2019s only his first season on the show. \u201cIt is absurd. It\u2019s unreal how blind we have to be, and God forbid say what\u2019s obviously there. He had no idea what the foxtrot is supposed to look like. How are you going to expect him to teach it and deliver that message in a format that is completely different?\u201d<\/p>\n

Billboard has reached out to DWTS producers for comment.<\/p>\n

The podcast comes shortly after Ravnik advanced to the next round of DWTS with his celebrity partner, Jen Affleck of The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, following their performance on a Wicked-themed episode of the show featuring guest judge Jon M. Chu. The duo scored 8\u2019s across the board \u2014 but Murgatroyd said she thinks Affleck is at a disadvantage with the Eras Tour alum as her partner.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel bad, because she\u2019s not getting taught the basics that she needs to,\u201d said the podcaster. \u201cHe\u2019s a Taylor Swift dancer, it\u2019s the obvious reason why he was hired \u2014 apart from that, he\u2019s a lovely guy, he looks great, he\u2019s a great dancer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite Ravnik\u2019s positive qualities, Murgatroyd added: \u201cHiring a non-ballroom dancer to teach ballroom dancing to a celebrity as a job is outrageous.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 34th season of DWTS kicked off in mid-September. In addition to Affleck, Whitney Leavitt \u2014 also of Mormon Wives fame \u2014 as well as Alix Earle, Robert Irwin, Scott Hoying of Pentatonix, Lauren Jauregui of Fifth Harmony, Jordan Chiles, Hilaria Baldwin and Danielle Fishel were cast as the show\u2019s latest flock of celebrity amateur dancers.<\/p>\n

And despite still coming down from the high of Swift\u2019s groundbreaking Eras trek, Ravnik expressed how excited he was to be joining DWTS as a pro following his casting announcement in August. \u201cI traveled all around the world with Eras Tour, and now I\u2019m coming to the ballroom stage for Dancing With the Stars,\u201d he said at the time in video statement on Good Morning America. \u201cMirrorball never goes out of style, and we are ready to win it.\u201d<\/p>\n

See Chmerkovskiy and Murgatroyd\u2019s full discussion about Ravnik on DWTS below.<\/p>\n

\"Billboard<\/a><\/p>\n

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Sign up for Billboard’s Newsletter<\/a>. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook<\/a>, Twitter<\/a>, and Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Dancing With the Stars pros Maksim Chmerkovskiy and Peta Murgatroyd didn\u2019t dance around their feelings on the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":255787,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[10158,16621,88808,88,138412,107552,138411,138586,4915],"class_list":["post-255786","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-billboard","tag-dancing-with-the-stars","tag-dwts","tag-entertainment","tag-jan-ravnik","tag-maksim-chmerkovskiy","tag-peta-murgatroyd","tag-professional-dancer","tag-taylor-swift"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255786","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=255786"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255786\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/255787"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=255786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=255786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=255786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}