Maksim Chmerkovskiy makes it clear what he thinks Former Taylor Swift dancer Jan Ravnik “has no right” to act as a professional on Dancing with the Stars this season.
Chmerkovskiy, 45, who danced professionally for 17 seasons on “DWTS,” explained it to his wife Peta Murgatroyd on the Oct. 24 episode. Podcast “Penthouse with Peta” that he believes Ravnica lacks the skills to teach his co-star, The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives star Jen Affleck, to perform the complex ballroom dances featured on DWTS.
Chmerkovskiy's observations about Ravnica, which debuted on the ABC dance competition this season, come as he and Murgatroyd criticized all of the couple's recent “DWTS” performances.
“There's no foundation, no technique, no quality, no sense of partnership. Bro, I'm getting emotional,” Chmerkovskiy said of Ravnica, which traveled the world with Swift as a dancer on the Eras Tour.
Ravnica's resume includes collaborations with several other pop stars, including Paula Abdul, Bruno Mars and Mariah Carey. Ravnik danced alongside Carey in her 2021 TV special, “A Mariah Christmas: The Magic Continues,” and also performed at the Billboard Music Awards and Dick Clark's “New Year's Rockin' Eve,” according to his biography at the Joffrey Ballet School. website.
“This is absurd, and it’s unrealistic how blind we must be and God forbid we say what is obvious,” Chmerkovskiy added.
Chmerkovsky cited as an example Ravnica and Affleck's foxtrot, which earned the couple 32 points out of 40 from the judges.
“He had no idea what a foxtrot was supposed to look like. How are you going to expect him to teach that and deliver that message in a format that's completely different from even ballroom dancing?” – Chmerkovskiy asked. “We heard this criticism a few weeks ago and I was like, 'Bro, will somebody explain this to him?'”
Murgatroyd, 39, said she appreciated the “moody and dramatic” quality of the couple's foxtrot and also admired their excellent “partnership work”. But the real “elements of the foxtrot” just “didn't hit the mark,” she added.
“He's learning,” Murgatroyd, who danced as a “DWTS” pro for 15 seasons, added of Ravnica. “He's a slow learner. This is his first season. We have to give him credit for not understanding the foxtrot technique.”
Murgatroyd agreed with her husband that the Ravnica partnership put Affleck at a “serious disadvantage.”
“I'm sorry because she's not being taught the basics that she needs,” she said. “They don’t teach her the basics of dance.”
Chmerkovskiy, who said he has nothing against Ravnik personally, agreed with Murgatroyd that Ravnik's lack of ballroom dancing skills was “not his fault.”
Ravnica's history with Swift is “an obvious reason” he was cast on “DWTS,” Murgatroyd noted.
“Other than that, he's a lovely guy. He looks great. He's obviously a great dancer, but…hiring a non-ballroom dancer to teach celebrity ballroom dancing as a job is outrageous,” she said.
TODAY.com reached out to Ravnica and ABC for comment and did not immediately hear back.
