Maksim Chmerkovskiy is today apologizing to Jan Ravnik.
The former Dancing With the Stars pro dancer previously made comments saying the new season 34 pro wasn’t qualified to be a pro on the show and shouldn’t have been cast.
Following this week’s performance and his elimination, Jan reacted to comments saying Maksim was “trying to stay relevant and spreading hate.”
today, Maks shared a new video on social media with an apology and a plea to Jan.
Keep reading to find out more…
“First and foremost, I want to apologize to Jan for the way my words had made you feel, for hurting your feelings,” he said in a video posted Thursday (October 30). “There’s a lot more that I want to say. I would like an opportunity to do it over coffee, or any kind of time you have to spare. I would love to meet. I would love to talk about this, bury the hatchet.”
“Most importantly, I think you’re going to walk away with knowing me, feeling completely different and, dare I say, we probably might even be friends,” Maks continued. “And to that point, I’m not not a friend, you know, regardless of what I say. Maybe it’s paradoxical, but my personality [is] ‘I love you, and I will tell you how it is,’ let alone if I don’t know you.”
“So, my commentary on dance does not come with feelings and emotions, it just comes with [a] completely different range of reasoning. And, you know, I’m that guy. So, I would like to explain myself. Like I said, I would like this to be personal, because this is wild to me.”
He then continued to seemingly react to the backlash he faced from fans and others following his comments, which were made on his wife Peta Murgatroyd‘s podcast.
“And the second thing is a little more ego driven,” Maks admits. “You guys wanted me to be me. You can’t really hurt my feelings by saying, ‘Look at you loser. You only won once. Blah, blah, blah.’ Yes, I know that more than anybody else. I’m also very well aware that every single member in my family has won Dancing With the Stars more than I have. They are much better at Dancing With the Stars than me.”
“The part of Dancing With the Stars that I was never able to really wrestle and dominate is the public perception. The public opinion and what people think about me,” he continued. “Fundamentally, I don’t care, and I lead with that. And because I lead with that, I’m not fighting for anybody’s votes. And so, in a platform where that’s important, I’m not the guy.”
“On leading of it, I made incredible mistakes. Incredible mistakes. With my partners, some of them, with how I presented myself a few times, with the loss of temper, it was horrible situations a few times. So, it’s not like you’re saying stuff that I don’t already know or been through. I’m 45, I have kids, I try to only lead by example. Because of that, what I can point at myself and say, ‘That, don’t do that.’ There’s been examples of that too. I’m very honest, and again, I told you, I’m very black and white. When I maybe late in the game, when I realize something about myself, I realize it. And it’s not going to be because somebody says that to me, it’s because I finally understood that for myself. So that’s how I take everything on and that’s how I process things.”
He closed out his video, saying, “Let’s not defend someone by attacking somebody else.”
If you didn’t know, Maksim first joined DWTS in season two, and competed for 15 seasons. Throughout his time, he won the mirrorball once with Meryl Davis in season 18, came in second and third twice each, and other times placed lower, including a 12th place finish in seasons eight and nine.
Since then, he has also appeared as a guest judge and also as judge on international versions of the show, competing on The Masked Dancer and serving as a judge on So You Think You Can Dance.
About the Author
