Hours after Maksim Chmerkovskiy apologized for hurting Jan Ravnik‘s feelings by slamming his Dancing With the Stars casting, his wife, Peta Murgatroyd, also addressed recent critiques she made about this season of the show. On the Friday, October 31, episode of her podcast, Murgatroyd addressed her previous episode, which featured her and Chmerkovskiy weighing in on DWTS‘ Wicked night.
“Some of our critiques came off more harshly than intended,” Murgatroyd explained. “I wanted to be really clear that was never the goal.”
She also clarified that she and Chmerkovskiy do not “condone” any “personal attacks” and insisted that they “love Dancing With the Stars,” even though they’ve moved on from being part of the cast.
While Murgatroyd previously said that viewers need to give Ravnik “grace” with his choreography since this was his first season as a pro, she did agree with her husband that Ravnik and Rylee Arnold may be too inexperienced to be on the main pro roster just yet.
“Jan and Rylee, please know that our intention was never to make things personal,” the two-time Mirrorball champion said. “We’re so sorry for hurting your feelings. Our goal is to discuss performances from a professional ballroom dancer’s perspective, and, unfortunately, sometimes our passion can be mistaken for negativity, but that’s never where our hearts are.”
Chmerkovskiy previously came under fire for his harsh comments about Ravnik. “Jan has absolutely no business being a pro on Dancing With the Stars,” he said, following Ravnik and Jennifer Affleck‘s foxtrot dance on Wicked night. “There’s zero foundation technique, quality, understanding of the partnership. Bro, I’m getting emotional. It is absurd.”
He called Ravnik’s casting a “missed opportunity” and said that Affleck was at a “disadvantage” for being partnered with Ravnik (the two were eliminated during this week’s Halloween episode). Murgatroyd weighed in, adding that Ravnik was likely only cast because of his history as Taylor Swift‘s backup dancer. “Having a non-ballroom dancer to teach ballroom dancing to a celebrity as a job is outrageous,” she added.
Meanwhile, Arnold and her partner, Scott Hoying, were eliminated after Wicked night, and Chmerkovskiy said it was because the Pentatnoix singer was “completely undertaught” by his pro partner. “I believe that this is a matter of experience for Rylee to understand that, in this case, he needed her to be facing him, looking at him and making him learn and making him repeat and place his hands,” Chmerkovskiy said. “Rylee, where she comes from, knows what cleaning means. So, they didn’t have time to clean, then you spend too much time over choreographing the situation.”
He directed an apology to Ravnik in an Instagram video on October 30. “I want to apologize to Jan for the way my words have made you feel, for hurting your feelings,” Chmerkovskiy said. “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’d love to meet, I’d love to talk about this, bury the hatchet. But also, most importantly, I think you’re going to walk away with knowing me, feeling completely different, and, dare I say, we’d probably might even be friends.”
Dancing With the Stars, Season 34, Tuesdays, 8/7c, ABC
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