DWTS Benched Val Chmerkovskiy for a Week, and It All Started With a Deleted TikTok

One deleted social media post was all it took. On Saturday, Dancing With the Stars announced that longtime pro Val Chmerkovskiy will not appear in next week’s live show, a punishment that caps off a week of escalating drama that started with his wife’s dance routine and ended with a reference to the most infamous slap in television history.

The show’s production company, BBC Studios, did not mince words. In a statement released Saturday, it called Chmerkovskiy’s post “inappropriate” and said it does not reflect the values expected of anyone connected with the show. The message to everyone watching was clear: not even a fan favorite gets to joke about hitting a judge.

If you have missed any of this saga, here is how a routine critique of a samba turned into the biggest DWTS controversy in years.

The Critique That Started It All

It started on Tuesday, October 13, during the show’s first ever Super Bowl Night. Pro dancer Jenna Johnson, who is married to Chmerkovskiy, performed a samba with her celebrity partner, Step Up actor Harry Shum Jr., to Usher’s “Yeah!” The panel’s reaction was frosty.

Judge Carrie Ann Inaba went after the routine for lacking content, then zeroed in on what she said was an illegal lift. She did something that struck viewers as unusually harsh: she read the ballroom definition of a lift out loud, on live television, to make her point. Regular judges Derek Hough and Bruno Tonioli joined her in scoring the dance an 8, while guest judge Joe Buck gave it a 9, landing the pair at 33 out of 40.

The camera caught Chmerkovskiy in the skybox, visibly fuming as his wife’s scores came in. He shook his head and made faces, and clips of his reactions spread across social media within minutes. At that point, it was just reality television doing what reality television does. Then he opened TikTok.

The Post That Crossed the Line

After the show, a viral TikTok video of Chmerkovskiy’s visible frustration started circulating. He jumped into its comments himself and wrote: “Put some respect on her name. She’s trippin’ talking to her like that.” Fans read it as a direct shot at Inaba’s treatment of his wife.

Then came the post that changed everything. On Wednesday, Chmerkovskiy shared a TikTok Story that read: “You almost saw Fresh Prince enter the ballroom last night.” It was only up briefly before he deleted it, but a fan had already screenshotted it and reposted it in the comments of one of his videos, asking what he meant. The internet did the math fast.

The “Fresh Prince” line was read almost universally as a reference to Will Smith, the former Fresh Prince of Bel-Air star, slapping Chris Rock at the 2022 Oscars after Rock joked about Smith’s wife, Jada Pinkett Smith. Fans interpreted Chmerkovskiy’s meaning as: he came close to slapping Inaba himself. Comments ranged from “Bro that joke ain’t it” to people calling it an outright threat.

Inaba’s Reaction

Inaba saw the story, and she let the world know she had seen it. She reshared media coverage of Chmerkovskiy’s post to her own Instagram Story, adding a photo of Will Smith and the caption: “So this is what we are doing now?”

That single caption did a lot of work. It confirmed that the judge herself had read the post the same way the angriest fans had: as a threat, not a joke. Within hours, the DWTS fandom had split into two camps, one defending Chmerkovskiy for standing up for his wife, the other saying there is no version of this where joking about hitting someone is acceptable.

The Apology

Chmerkovskiy apologized on Thursday, posting a statement to his Instagram Story. He said he wanted to apologize “from the bottom of my heart,” that he had reached out to Inaba to apologize directly and personally, and that he understood his words affected people far beyond the DWTS family.

“I recognize that I am in a fortunate position to have a platform and to be a role model to some, and I need to treat that with more care by actively pausing to think before I post,” he wrote. “I am truly sorry to Carrie Ann, and everyone who I hurt with my careless post. I will do better moving forward.”

For a day or so, it looked like the apology might be the end of it. It was not.

The Suspension

On Saturday, October 17, BBC Studios announced that Chmerkovskiy would sit out next week’s episode entirely. The statement was unusually blunt for a show that usually handles its dirty laundry quietly:

“The well-being of everyone who works on ‘Dancing with the Stars’ is non-negotiable. Val’s 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’s show.”

The timing stings. Next week’s live episode, airing Tuesday, October 20, is Dedication Night, one of the season’s most emotional themes. Chmerkovskiy’s absence will be visible. The pros are woven into every part of the show’s format, and his celebrity partner for this season, Jenna Dewan, will be affected as well.

Chmerkovskiy released a second statement after the suspension was announced, framing the post as an instinct to defend his wife that went sideways. “In a moment where my instinct was to defend my wife, I 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,” he wrote. He added that Inaba “certainly didn’t deserve to get caught in the middle of my bad judgment” and asked fans to send love to Inaba, Johnson, and the whole DWTS family during Dedication Night, saying he would be watching and cheering everyone on.

What Happens Next

The big open questions all point at Tuesday. Will the show address the suspension on air? Will Inaba and Chmerkovskiy’s colleagues say anything about it live? And what happens to Jenna Dewan’s partnership for the week?

Here is what we know for sure right now:

• Chmerkovskiy, who has been on DWTS since season 2, misses the October 20 Dedication Night episode.
• BBC Studios called the suspension a one-week decision, which means his return is expected the following week, assuming nothing else comes out.
• Jenna Johnson and Harry Shum Jr., the couple at the center of all this, are still competing.
• Chmerkovskiy’s public apology stands, and he has said he apologized to Inaba personally as well.

The honest read on all of this is that Chmerkovskiy was doing what a lot of spouses would do: defending his wife after he thought she was treated unfairly on live television. The problem is the specific joke he reached for. Referencing the Oscars slap, one of the most condemned moments in modern entertainment history, made his defense read as a threat, and that turned a fandom argument into a workplace safety issue for the show’s producers.

One deleted post, one week on the bench, and a Dedication Night that just got a whole lot more complicated.

For the full backstory on the episode that started it all, see our recap of DWTS Super Bowl Night, and catch up on more reality TV moments in the Viral section. The controversy was covered in detail by Just Jared, Page Six, and Parade.