{"id":2512691,"date":"2026-07-22T15:57:27","date_gmt":"2026-07-22T15:57:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2512691"},"modified":"2026-07-22T15:57:27","modified_gmt":"2026-07-22T15:57:27","slug":"val-chmerkovskiy-calls-out-aj-pritchard-on-dwts-the-next-pro","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/val-chmerkovskiy-calls-out-aj-pritchard-on-dwts-the-next-pro\/","title":{"rendered":"Val Chmerkovskiy Calls Out AJ Pritchard on \u2018DWTS: The Next Pro\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Things are heating up on Dancing with the Stars: The Next Pro<\/a>, where nine contestants are left competing for a spot on season 35 of DWTS. And while it\u2019s unclear who will take home the title, it seems that Val Chmerkovskiy<\/a> has some…thoughts about one of the remaining contenders.<\/p>\n

During the latest episode of his new Stepping on Toes<\/a> podcast with Danielle Fishel, the two discussed the DWTS spinoff series, where it was revealed that Val finds AJ Pritchard (who was formerly a pro on Strictly Come Dancing) a bit \u201carrogant,\u201d particularly toward his partner, Selena Hamilton.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt makes good TV at his expense. I guess that\u2019s how I want to say it,\u201d Val said of AJ (who, yes, is the brother of Love Island UK star Curtis Prichard). \u201cI wish he wrapped that arrogance into a little softer presentation.\u201d<\/p>\n

He continued, \u201cI understand if he\u2019s coming in with this feeling of like\u2026I\u2019m not gonna say entitlement, I don\u2019t want to use that word. But if he comes in with not a chip on his shoulder, but kind of like, \u2018What am I even doing here? Why do I have to go through this process if I already know I\u2019m good enough and I already did this.\u2019 I can appreciate that, but dude, then don\u2019t sign up for the show.\u201d<\/p>\n

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AJ\u2019s r\u00e9sum\u00e9 is pretty impressive, considering (in addition to his Strictly Come Dancing experience) he got to the semifinals of Britain\u2019s Got Talent back in 2013 and has made several other reality TV appearances, including on I\u2019m a Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here, Celebrity MasterChef, The Challenge UK, even RuPaul\u2019s Drag Race UK as a choreographer. But still, Val doesn\u2019t think AJ\u2019s overconfidence is justified.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve all got pedigree,\u201d he added. \u201cEveryone\u2019s won something. You have to have humility in the sense that you\u2019ve got to prove yourself right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t the first time AJ has been under extra scrutiny. During the Next Pro premiere, he received some tough criticism from the judges, with Derek Hough telling him, \u201cI think you lacked oomph and a little bit of energy, especially with what the music was giving us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mark Ballas then added, \u201cYou\u2019ve done this job before in Strictly, so there\u2019s a little more pressure on you. There\u2019s killers on our show. If you are dancing next to someone like Val Chmerkovskiy, I want to see you fight for it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rooting for you, AJ!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.cosmopolitan.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Things are heating up on Dancing with the Stars: The Next Pro, where nine contestants are left competing for a spot on season 35 of DWTS. And while it\u2019s unclear who will take home the title, it seems that Val Chmerkovskiy has some…thoughts about one of the remaining contenders. During the latest episode of his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2512692,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[495744,464821,274717,495743,285977,466866,285684,441834,495742,488699,440065],"class_list":["post-2512691","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists","tag-collection-dancing-with-the-stars-news","tag-collection-reality-tv-news","tag-content-type-news","tag-contentid-a60e6c86-ded1-4c7c-b48a-ea247e3630e6","tag-displaytype-standard-article","tag-issyndicated-false","tag-locale-us","tag-read_time-2","tag-shorttitle-val-chmerkovskiy-has-thoughts-on-aj-pritchard","tag-sponsored-false","tag-subsection-tv"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Val-Chmerkovskiy-Calls-Out-AJ-Pritchard-on-\u2018DWTS-The-Next.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2512691","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2512691"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2512691\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2512693,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2512691\/revisions\/2512693"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2512692"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2512691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2512691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2512691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}