Dancing With the Stars pro Alan Bersten is teasing his performance with Jenna Dewan for Dedication Night after her partner Val Chmerkovskiy’s suspension.
“I am so honored to be stepping in and dancing with @jennadewan,” Bersten, 32, wrote via Instagram on Tuesday, October 20, sharing photos of the pair on the ballroom floor with Dewan’s mom, Nancy Smith. “You are such a light and it’s so beautiful to see you and your mom share the floor.”
When Bersten and Dewan, 45, take the stage on Tuesday, the pair will honor Smith with a Viennese waltz to “Unchained Melody” by The Righteous Brothers. The routine comes days after Chmerkovskiy, 40, faced backlash for defending wife Jenna Johnson following her viral exchange with judge Carrie Ann Inaba over whether she featured an illegal lift in a dance.
Chmerkovskiy subsequently took to social media to reference Will Smith infamously slapping Chris Rock at the 2022 Oscars and telling the comedian to “keep my wife’s name out your f***ing mouth.” After Chmerkovskiy publicly apologized to Inaba, 58, he shared a separate statement regarding his suspension.
“In a moment where my instinct was to defend my wife, I made a poor decision to reference a meme to ‘keep my wife’s name’ out of the conversation, without stopping to think through what else that reference could imply, which was genuinely never my intention,” Chmerkovskiy wrote in a statement shared with Us. “Carrie Ann certainly didn’t deserve to get caught in the middle of my bad judgment, and I hate that she was.”
He continued, “The last thing I want is to become a distraction from an important week or from the incredible work my dance partner Jenna Dewan is putting in. Please send Carrie Ann, Jenna, and the whole DWTS family lots of love during Dedication Night. I’ll be watching and cheering everyone on!!”
The decision has since sparked conversation online with past DWTS pros, including Gleb Savchenko, who claimed Bersten is “just not up to the level of dancing.” Bersten’s girlfriend and fellow DWTS pro, Emma Slater, later took to social media to defend him from commenters.
“Alan is going to dance for Val? Alan? Alan was eliminated,” one fan said in a TikTok clip, to which Slater, 37, responded, “Yeah that’s what happens, we all step in for each other.”
Dancing With the Stars airs on ABC and Disney+ Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET.
