Jenna Dewan is gearing up for a special Dedication Night on Dancing With the Stars — with Alan Bersten standing in for her partner, Val Chmerkovskiy, in light of his one-week suspension.
“Hi everybody,” Dewan, 45, began rehearsal footage shared via the official DWTS account’s Instagram Stories on Sunday, October 18. “It’s Dedication Night and we are dancing a Viennese waltz to ‘Unchained Melody’ by the Righteous Brothers, the greatest most romantic song ever.”
Dewan further gushed that she was “so excited” for the performance, while a smiling Bersten, 32, stood beside her.
Us confirmed on Saturday, October 17, that eliminated pro Bersten was brought in to dance with Dewan after Chmerkovskiy, 40, was benched for allegedly threatening violence against judge Carrie Ann Inaba. (Inaba, 58, criticized Chmerkovskiy’s wife, Jenna Johnson, for an illegal lift in her Super Bowl Night samba, prompting the three-time DWTS champ to defend his spouse via social media.)
“The well-being of everyone who works on Dancing with the Stars is non-negotiable,” a spokesperson for BBC Studios said in a statement shared with Us. “Val’s social media post was inappropriate and does not reflect the values or standards expected of anyone connected with the show. As a result, he will not participate in next week’s show.”
Chmerkovskiy, who has since publicly apologized to Inaba, issued a statement of his own in the wake of 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 via his Instagram Stories on Saturday. “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!!”
While neither Dewan, Bersten, Inaba nor Johnson have directly addressed Chmerkovskiy’s benching, former pro Gleb Savchenko criticized Bersten for stepping into his colleague’s shoes.
“Alan, I think he’s Alan. I mean, he’s just not up to the level of dancing, like, period,” Savchenko, 43, quipped during a Saturday social media livestream. “[The] quality, the technique. He’s a good dancer, I guess, for TV but if we talk about art? Like creating art? He’s like, eh. … I don’t have anything against the guy, just, why Alan?”
Dancing With the Stars airs Tuesdays on ABC and Disney+ at 8 p.m. ET.
