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Former “Dancing with the Stars” professional dancer Maksim Chmerkovskiy is all about family these days, having welcomed his second son with his wife Peta Murgatroyd in June. As many DWTS fans have noticed, Chmerkovskiy has mellowed quite a bit in recent years as he settled down and became a father. He acknowledged that, and shared a few wild stories about his early days in a recent podcast appearance. Some of what he shared had not been revealed before, and fans will not want to miss what he had to say.
Here’s what you need to know:
Maksim Chmerkovskiy Took Teaching Too Seriously in the Early DWTS Days
Chermkovskiy and his younger brother, Val Chmerkovskiy, joined “Dancing with the Stars” champion Kaitlyn Bristowe for a recent episode of her “Off the Vine” podcast. The episode covered a lot of ground, and quite a few memories and stories from the early years emerged. Maks admitted he hated dancing for a long time, and he shared, “I’m very much a late bloomer. Everybody, you know, that know me through my life, they could see I get things later in life. So by 16, I’m going on 12.”
During his teen years, Maks carried the responsibility of taking dance lessons and then teaching his younger brother what he had learned. Val went on to be a two-time world champion, and Maks found himself needing to learn how to teach celebrities who did not necessarily have any significant dance background whatsoever.
Of his early seasons on “Dancing with the Stars,” Maks recalled, “I was just never told, ‘Hey, by the way, you don’t have to win. You could just get a partner, and just do your thing, and just be happy and smile, and it’s about their journey.” He continued, “I was told that this is a competition… I was like, yeah, let’s do it, I gotta win.” As a result, he took his role with his partners quite seriously, and “it trickled down to the poor first couple of partners that I had. And then I kind of slowly learned oh yeah, it’s not about all of that.”
The DWTS Star Also Embraced Life in Los Angeles During His Free Time
Later in the podcast, Maks turned back to those early “Dancing with the Stars” seasons to reveal a wild story. He teased that virtually nobody outside of his family knew how wild he got during those initial seasons. He referenced season 2, which was his first season as a pro dancer, although he also mentioned Spice Girls singer Mel B., which came in season 5. His first partner, in season 2, was Tia Carrere.
Maks described moving to Los Angeles to do the show, and admitted, “I landed a single, 25-year-old, and I had the time of a mother-flipping life for about five years.” Prior to starting “Dancing with the Stars,” Maks had never even been to Los Angeles. Upon moving there, he found himself living in a “mega mansion” that he landed thanks to a friend of a friend. He recalled, “I had access to everybody and everybody’s mother, I mean, I’ve partied with everyone, everybody. It’s 2006… I enjoyed some things with Snoop Dogg before anybody else.”
The dancer admitted, “I went from a kid that never, ever went out… to, I’m alone, in L.A., and I’m making a little bit of money. Disaster.” He then shared an embarrassing story from his season with Mel, where he was out partying every single night. While “it was an incredible time,” he had a Tuesday during that season when he decided he would stay home instead of following his usual routine of partying. “I went to sleep, I woke up, I’m like, it’s amazing, I got a full night’s sleep.” He showered, grabbed his coffee, and arrived for rehearsal at what he thought was actually a bit earlier than planned.
Maks Had Everybody Worried
Everybody looked at Maks strangely when he walked in, and Mel asked, “Where you been?” He was confused by this, and soon the partners realized he thought it was Wednesday, but it was actually Thursday. “I slept for 24 hours. My body was so exhausted. I passed out.” Then Maks looked at his phone, which typically had no reception at the place where he lived. “Production was calling my friends in New York… there [were] hospitals being looked at, police department, I just did not show up.”
The “Dancing with the Stars” pro got in some trouble for that, but the experience did not tame him at that stage. Maks admitted the same type of scenario happened “Once a season for the next two seasons… For three seasons in a row, right in the middle of it, I would just go to sleep, wake up a day and a half later.” Maks teased that story was “exclusively for Kaitlyn Bristowe, and no one else outside of my family, who was petrified for those three times” had been aware of how crazy things had been.
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