Maks Chmerkovskiy is in hot water again after some not-so-favorable Dancing With the Stars commentary. This time, Ezra Sosa and Jordan Chiles are in the line of critique fire.
“It was just a good hip-hop, Chmerkovskiy, 45, told Peta Murgatroyd on The Penthouse With Peta podcast, who disagreed. “It was not a good freestyle.”
“Freestyle can be anything and I’ve also done big mistakes in the finale thinking that my hip-hop and crump is going to take it down, but it’s not. This was a great hip-hop routine that was not a good freestyle dance for Dancing With the Stars finale trying to win the show.”
Both Chmerkovskiy and Murgatroyd, 39, agreed Normani didn’t need to be part of the dance and took away from the overall performance. Chmerkovskiy wished Sosa, 25, filled in where Normani participated.
Of course, fans of Sosa and the 24-year-old gymnast sounded off on Reddit.
“If he’s arguing that the dance did not meet the show’s definition of a freestyle, then the show should reiterate what their definition is,” said one fan who understands the freestyle performances to be “whatever you want” in order to showcase the star.
“That’s EXACTLY what Jordan and Ezra did,” they continued. “If their dance just didn’t meet HIS definition of a freestyle then that’s another story…”
Another commenter thought Chmerkovskiy’s opinion of the dance might be that it didn’t “showcase [Chiles’] journey through the show.”
“He just didn’t like their strategy,” they pointed out. “But he’s not articulating himself clearly enough and he’s needlessly being a curmudgeon.”
“This man is too biased towards his brother that he can’t compliment other dances,” said another Redditor. “I don’t understand why he thinks he’d be a good judge, he’d be terrible.”
Earlier this season, Chmerkovskiy harshly critiqued Jan Ravnik‘s first season as a pro on Dancing With the Stars. His opinions, like his commentary regarding Chiles’ freestyle, weren’t received favorably.
This story was originally published by Parade on Nov 30, 2025, where it first appeared in the News section. Add Parade as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com ’
