The Biggest Feuds On Dancing With The Stars
A judge insults a contestant's intelligence, Kate Gosselin makes her partner quit, and a dancer votes to kill his partner... but playfully. The dancing may be smooth on "Dancing With the Stars," but sometimes the relationships aren't.
Transcript
00:00 A judge insults a contestant's intelligence, Kate Gosselin makes her partner quit, and
00:05 a dancer votes to kill his partner. But playfully, the dancing may be smooth on Dancing with
00:10 the Stars, but sometimes the relationships aren't.
00:14 Before Julianne Hough was the co-host on Dancing with the Stars, she was a pro in the ballroom
00:18 with two mirrorball trophies under her belt. She left the show after Season 8 to pursue
00:23 some other interests, but returned for a few seasons as a judge. It was during this time
00:27 that she made some comments to Season 23 contestant Amber Rose that didn't go over too well. Rose
00:32 and her pro partner, Maxim Chmerkovskiy, danced a salsa to the song "Booty" by Jennifer Lopez.
00:37 When it came time for the judges to give their feedback, Hough told Rose a part of the dance
00:41 made her feel uncomfortable. On an episode of her now-defunct show called "Love Line,"
00:45 Rose expressed that it seemed she was singled out because of her body shape and how other
00:49 dancers do the same moves and are praised. Fortunately, Rose and Hough were able to talk
00:53 through things, and Hough apologized to Rose.
00:57 Ro Sharna Burgess was partnered with Desperate Housewives actor Jesse Metcalf on Season 29,
01:02 and many fans thought the pairing was sure to be a match. However, Burgess and Metcalf
01:06 were eliminated fourth after failing to impress the audience. In September 2023, Burgess spoke
01:11 a bit about the partnership on an episode of her Oldish podcast, though she didn't mention
01:15 Metcalf by name, saying,
01:17 "I wasn't able to be in the room alone with him after the first couple of weeks because
01:21 of things that happened. And so that was rocky, and we were eliminated very quickly."
01:25 A rep for Metcalf called Burgess "unprofessional" in a statement given to Page Six. And while
01:29 many fans have been trying to figure out details, Burgess later clarified that whatever happened
01:34 between her and Metcalf was not sexual in nature. While chatting with Cheryl Burke on
01:38 her Sex, Lies & Spray Tans podcast, Burgess dove a little bit deeper, saying,
01:42 "That was a difficult situation for me. I was able to record some things and I did go
01:46 to the proper people, and there were reports made, and I was taken care of."
01:50 On Season 22 of Dancing with the Stars, actor Mischa Barton was paired with pro Artem Chigvintsev,
01:56 which seemed to be a good match. However, the two were eliminated from the competition
02:00 rather quickly, kissing their chance at the Mirrorball Trophy goodbye during Week 2. Eight
02:04 months after their elimination from the show, Barton did an interview with The Ringer where
02:08 she revealed her awful experience with Chigvintsev, saying,
02:10 "I had no idea it would be so bad. I got told off by my dancer. I was supposed to control
02:16 the costumes. I was told that I could do the design aspect of it. That's kind of the reason
02:20 why I agreed to do it. It was all a popularity contest. It was awful. I was so glad to get
02:25 kicked off."
02:26 Months prior, Chigvintsev hinted that things were rough behind the scenes. In an interview
02:30 with E! News, Chigvintsev admitted that he and Barton didn't get off to a good start.
02:34 "This relationship has been, like, there's been a lot of up and downs, but I'll just
02:39 say it's real."
02:40 What makes things more interesting is the fact that there were actually dating rumors
02:44 surrounding the pair. However, a rep was quick to explain that the two were just friends.
02:48 But even that sounds like a stretch, given how Barton says she felt about the experience
02:52 as a whole.
02:53 Max Chmerkovsky is a super passionate dancer and teacher, but his style didn't always jive
02:58 with his Dancing with the Stars partners. Perhaps the most notable feud to come out
03:02 of the show was in Season 25, when Chmerkovsky was partnered with Vanessa Lachey. Things
03:07 got so bad in rehearsals that Chmerkovsky actually took a show night off, refusing to
03:11 take the stage with Lachey. Meanwhile, a source told E! News that Chmerkovsky and Lachey were
03:16 having a hard time together, saying, "Their personalities have completely clashed and
03:20 they really don't get along off set."
03:21 The two were able to figure things out enough to get them through a few more weeks of the
03:25 competition before they ultimately finished in seventh place. On a 2023 episode of Sheryl
03:29 Burke's "Sex, Lies & Spray Tans" podcast, Chmerkovsky was asked a series of rapid-fire
03:34 questions, and one required him to name a person on the show that he'd want to apologize
03:38 to. His response? Vanessa Lachey.
03:41 On Season 29 of Dancing with the Stars, Kaitlyn Bristowe felt that longtime judge Carrie Ann
03:45 Inaba went a little too far in her criticisms, and Bristowe took it personally. In an interview
03:50 with E! TV, Bristowe's partner, Artemchik Vintsev, admitted that even he felt that Inaba's
03:55 criticisms missed the mark.
03:57 "At this point, it starts being a little personal, I feel like."
04:01 "Yes!"
04:02 Meanwhile, Bristowe explained her feelings on the matter, saying,
04:03 "I just want to know where it comes from. Is it from a place where you believe in us
04:07 and you want us to do better?"
04:08 Inaba ended up feeling pushed around by fans who supported Bristowe, saying on an episode
04:13 of The Talk, "Just so you all know, for all of you trying to bully me about it, I judge
04:17 the way I judge from my background. That is my job to do it, and I will always do it based
04:21 on my own conscience. Not because you're trying to tell me what to do."
04:24 Of course, fans know that Bristowe went on to win the Mirror Ball trophy, but her feud
04:28 with Inaba didn't get buried. The two didn't speak after the Mirror Ball was presented
04:32 to the former Bachelorette star.
04:34 On Season 4 of Dancing with the Stars, Ballroom Pro Cheryl Burke was partnered with Beverly
04:38 Hills 90210 actor Ayan Ziering. In April 2016, Burke went on Theo Vonn's Allegedly podcast
04:45 and said some not-so-nice things about the partnership, saying,
04:48 "Spending time with Ayan for 8 to 10 hours, 7 days a week for 3 months made me want to
04:52 slit my wrists. She had stressed that she really wanted to be eliminated early on, and
04:57 she wasn't happy to have made it to the semifinals with him."
04:59 Five years later, Burke offered a public apology to her Season 4 partner, saying on an episode
05:04 of her Pretty Messed Up podcast,
05:06 "The one thing I truly regret and want to make amends with is Ayan Ziering. I was completely
05:10 out of line a few years ago. There's no excuse. No matter if it was a joke or not, I know
05:15 it hurt him. And I know it hurt his family. It was a big deal."
05:18 In an interview with the New York Post in October 2023, Burke said that she and Ziering
05:22 have moved on from their feud and that there is no animosity between them.
05:26 Max Chmerkovsky and Hope Solo's feud is one that is still ongoing. The two were paired
05:31 together on Season 13 of Dancing with the Stars, and even though they made it to the
05:35 semifinals, their partnership was definitely rocky. Less than a year after appearing on
05:39 the show together, Solo released her memoir, Solo, a Memoir of Hope. In her book, she detailed
05:44 her experience on Dancing with the Stars, and made some serious accusations against
05:48 Chmerkovsky, writing,
05:49 "He was often nasty, swearing at me and being harshly critical. He manhandled me in rehearsals
05:54 from the start, pushing me, whacking my stomach, bending my arms roughly. I thought that was
05:59 just how it went, how dancers worked with each other."
06:01 Solo also alleged that Chmerkovsky once smacked her face. Chmerkovsky denied being physically
06:06 abusive in rehearsals. In 2015, Chmerkovsky played a game of f--- Mary Kill on Theo Vaughn's
06:12 Allegedly podcast, given the choice of his former dancing partners. Perhaps to the surprise
06:16 of no one, Chmerkovsky said he'd kill Solo, saying,
06:19 "She's just a s--- person."
06:21 And Solo had a response. She posted a photo to Twitter of DWTS judges Carrie Ann Inaba,
06:26 Len Goodman, and Bruno Tognoli holding up their scoring paddles, each with a low score
06:31 of one on them. Solo said nothing else, but she didn't need to. It was beyond clear that
06:35 she was letting Chmerkovsky know how she felt about his comments about her.
06:40 Reality television star Kate Gosselin seemed really excited to be cast on Season 10 of
06:44 Dancing with the Stars, and being paired with Tony Dovolani seemed like a good move, given
06:48 his calm nature in the ballroom. But Gosselin was full of complaints from day one, and Dovolani
06:53 ultimately couldn't handle it. Things got so bad that Dovolani actually quit the show,
06:58 later saying on the Hollywood Life podcast,
07:00 "For me, I love dancing. I love what dancing does for people. It's a happy sport. It's
07:04 a wonderful life that it's created for me. She didn't realize where she was at. I hadn't
07:08 signed up for that."
07:09 He went on to say that he felt Gosselin wasn't on the show for the right reasons, and he
07:13 simply wanted to do his job and teach her how to dance. Dovolani ended up talking to
07:17 producers and was allowed to continue participating in the competition. He later admitted that
07:21 he regretted quitting.
07:23 Gosselin and Dovolani were the fourth couple eliminated during their season. Fortunately,
07:27 their relationship didn't completely sour Dovolani's love for the show, and he returned
07:30 for several more seasons. He won his first and only Mirrorball trophy on the All-Star
07:35 season in 2012, and decided to retire from the program after Season 22.
07:40 It may be hard to believe that longtime Dancing with the Stars judge Bruno Tognoli had a feud
07:44 with a contestant, but it happened. Model and actor Charlotte McKinney was cast on Season
07:49 20 of the dance competition alongside pro Kyo Motsepe, and although she only lasted
07:53 two weeks, that was enough time for Tognoli to say something that upset her.
07:58 Tognoli was weighing in on McKinney's rumba when a hurtful comment came out of his mouth.
08:01 "You're never gonna win the Nobel Prize for quantum physics, but you are easy on the eye."
08:07 McKinney later told E! News that she felt the comment was unwarranted, adding,
08:11 "I didn't see where it came from. We weren't talking about being smart or anything like
08:15 that."
08:16 Following their elimination from the season, McKinney and Motsepe went on Good Morning
08:19 America to speak about their experience. During a word association game, neither McKinney
08:23 nor Motsepe had nice things to say when Tognoli was mentioned. McKinney went with "unfair,"
08:28 while Motsepe said "rude."
08:29 -