Maks Chmerkovskiy and his wife, Peta Murgatroyd, are getting ready to welcome baby No. 3 — and he’s hopeful their new bundle of joy won’t be their last.
Chmerkovskiy, 44, exclusively told Us Weekly “there’s no way” that he and his wife are done having kids yet. “Because I feel like if we’re going to be successful with these three, we’re going to look at each other and she’s going to say, ‘So we’re doing it again. What are we doing?’ So as long as we have space,” the new So You Think You Can Dance judge explained on Tuesday, February 27.
Chmerkovskiy and Murgatroyd, 37, are already parents to sons Shai, 7, and Rio, 7 months. The Dancing With the Stars pros announced earlier this month via Instagram that Murgatroyd is pregnant with baby No. 3, sharing a video in which she told Chmerkovskiy the news via FaceTime.
“We did have a conversation afterwards, that was off-camera. … I asked Peta because she’s looking to me for validation also because we are doing this together,” Chmerkovskiy recalled to Us. “I’m like, ‘Well, do you feel like, ‘Oh my God, what are we doing? Or do you feel, like, oh my God, what a blessing?’ And she’s like, ‘No, I’m definitely more, oh my God, what a blessing.’ I’m like, ‘Well, let’s just focus on that and let’s go with it.’”
Chmerkovskiy, who married Murgatroyd in 2017, is also really “excited” about welcoming another baby.
“I really am because I’m also looking at my friends who had kids earlier who have now out, actually, I sat on the plane with somebody,” he said. “He has a 19, 17, 15 and then an 8 and a 6, and I’m like, ‘Bro, you really went out.’ He was like, ‘Yeah.’ But then he showed him to me. I’m like, ‘That’s what I want.’ I want Peta with a squad behind her that she made. And me, somewhere there in the room.”
Chmerkovskiy and Murgatroyd’s eldest, Shai, is also happy about the new addition.
“I mean, he’s like, ‘Yeah, great,’ [and] kept it moving,” Chmerkovskiy quipped, noting Shai wants to name his new sibling “some weird” moniker. “I think it’s how we present it. If we present it in a neurotic, ‘Oh my God, what are we going to do?’ He’s going to have that reaction. No, it’s like, ‘Hey, we’re having another one.’ Great. He’ll realize later when he’s like a teenager, ‘What have you done? Why are there all of this? So what is happening here? Why am I supposed to be here with all of them?’”
Chmerkovskiy also praised how “amazing” Murgatroyd has been throughout her pregnancy.
“She looks amazing. I don’t know how she does any of this, to be honest,” he gushed. “I wake up in the morning and if I’m not feeling well, when I might not actually go with my day, she wakes up morning sickness for [what seems like] the last seems like five years, one pregnancy after another and somehow functions on the highest level. No one really talks about the fact that she was pregnant [during the] last two seasons [of DWTS], back-to-back. Started week four to [the semifinals] with her previous guy, with Barry [Williams]. She was six weeks into it. And so that alone for me, it’s like, ‘Oh my God.’”
The pro choreographer added, “I realize how much easier it is for me because of what I don’t have to go through with my body, but also because I’m, like, she’s just making me friends. And I think by the time it’s sort of fully my job, they’re just self-sufficient.”
Chmerkovskiy is balancing his growing family with judging So You Think You Can Dance. The Ukraine native will sit on the Fox judging panel alongside fellow pro dancers Allison Holker and JoJo Siwa in season 18, which starts in March.
“I mean, it has been a pinch-me moment,” Chmerkovskiy gushed to Us. “It’s like, ‘How did I get here?’ This is amazing, but it’s also at the perfect time for me because I actually can justify getting here and being in this position.”
He continued, “For me, it was always important to occupy the spot you earn. And I was critical of that and I still am of a lot of industries and people in certain positions, so I didn’t want to be that person. I think I’m in the right place, at the right time, on the heels of 20-plus years of professional stage — performing productions, TV mistakes, successes, ups and downs. I’ve done it all, and I feel like I have a lot to offer to in a mentoring capacity.”
So You Think You Can Dance premieres on Fox Monday, March 4, at 9 p.m. ET.
With reporting by Christina Garibaldi
