Carrie Ann Inaba fired back after Val Chmerkovskiy jokingly threatened to slap her Will Smith-style following drama on Dancing With the Stars.
Chmerkovskiy, 40, came under fire this week for fiercely defending his wife, Jenna Johnson, online after Inaba, 58, criticized her choreography on Tuesday, October 13’s Super Bowl Night.
“You almost saw Fresh Prince enter the ballroom last night,” Chmerkovskiy wrote in a since-deleted TikTok, seemingly referring to Fresh Prince of Bel-Air alum Smith, 58, infamously slapping Chris Rock at the 2022 Oscars for making a joke about his wife, Jada Pinkett Smith.
Inaba responded to the purported threat, asking, “So this is what we are doing now?”
She posed the question via Instagram on Thursday, October 15, sharing a screenshot of Page Six’s post featuring Chmerkovskiy and Smith side-by-side with the professional dancer’s quote over it.
Inaba added, “Thank you @pagesix and @entertainmentweekly for bringing this to my attention.”
The controversy began after Johnson, 32, and her celebrity partner, Harry Shum Jr., performed a samba during Tuesday’s show and Inaba docked them points for an illegal lift.
The judge noticed that Shum, 44, had been helped by two troupe dancers to do a backflip mid-routine, which goes against the rules of a traditional samba, which states dancers cannot take both feet off the ground.
“I think you need to put more content in your dances. Especially because [Harry’s] so good, I want to see you challenge yourself a little bit more in the vein of what we’re looking for,” Inaba told Johnson, who has been married to Chmerkovskiy since 2019. “And there was a lift.”
Johnson was confused by the remark, asking, “A lift?” noting she wasn’t the one who flipped her partner.
Inaba then read the definition off a piece of paper, saying, “A lift is — I just need to say it — any movement during which one of the dancers has both feet off the floor at the same time with the assistance or support of their partner. Yeah, lift.”
After the awkward judging, Johnson and Shum Jr. received a score of 33 out of 40. They got eights from all three regular judges, Derek Hough, Bruno Tonioli and Inaba, and received a nine from guest judge Joe Buck.
“I hear Carrie Ann. She’s a judge for a reason,” Johnson told Extra after Tuesday’s episode, claiming it was water under the bridge. “She’s gonna do her job, I’m gonna do mine. I’m gonna take the feedback.”
While the pair remained in the competition, Inaba’s criticism — she is known for being tougher than the other judges — caused a stir off camera.
In addition to Val coming to his wife’s aide, his brother, former DWTS pro Maksim Chmerkovskiy, spoke out about the incident.
“She goes and starts reading off the rulebook, but then that same rulebook that’s applicable in ballroom with lifts is only applicable to a couple dancing,” Maks, 46, explained on Thursday’s episode of the “Viall Files” podcast. “You’re not talking about extra background dancers running out.”
He added, “There’s no ‘three other people’ in the rulebook. The point is: Carrie Ann, get some consistency.”
Dancing With the Stars airs on ABC and Disney+ Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET.
