Artem Chigvintsev is pulling back the curtain on the week that “everything” shifted in his life, making rare comments about his divorce from Nikki Garcia and the explosive end to their relationship.
“Life completely changed within a week maybe,” Chigivintsev, 43, recalled on the Monday, April 20, episode of the “Penthouse With Peta” podcast, explaining that he was cut from Dancing With the Stars and arrested for alleged domestic violence back to back in August 2024.
Us Weekly confirmed that domestic violence charges against Chigvintsev were later dropped. The hits, however, kept coming as Garcia, 42, filed for divorce one week later. (The exes’ divorce settlement was finalized in November 2024.)
“I had to completely switch off ‘me.’ There was no way of processing everything. You just exist,” Chigvintsev told podcast hosts and fellow DWTS pros Sharna Burgess and Peta Murgatroyd during the two-part interview. “It was like a bad dream, all of it.”
Chigvintsev remembered, “I’m looking back, and I’m like, ‘Woah. I don’t know how everything [happened or] where I am right now.’”
When asked whether he would do anything differently, Chigvintsev said “no,” revealing it was “inevitable” for him to “end up where I needed to end up.”
The Russian native — who was married to Garcia for two years before their divorce — noted that he has to believe “everything happens for a reason.”
“I don’t think I would ever [have] left that relationship,” Chigvintsev confessed. “I was raised differently. [I was] raised to work through things and, like, my parents are together.”
Chigvintsev pointed out that his desire for his and Garcia’s 5-year-old son, Matteo, to live a normal life would have kept him in the marriage no matter their personal cost.
“You do everything for your kid,” Chigvintsev said. “I want my kid to have a full family. I’m a big believer that my kid needs to have both parents present.”
He noted that if he did meet someone knew, “That person will never have that love for my son like his mom does for him … that’s an organic feeling.”
Chigvintsev added that although he hasn’t been able to fill “the giant void” that DWTS left in his life, now that he’s a single parent he’s not sure he could be a pro on the ABC series and fully committed to Matteo. (Chigvintsev was a pro for 12 seasons before he was cut from the series ahead of season 33.)
“I don’t think I can do that to my son,” he admitted. “I don’t want to half ass [the show] and I don’t want to half ass [being a father]. But if they would [offer it again], I’ll definitely entertain.”
