Val Chmerkovskiy Apologizes to Carrie Ann Inaba After DWTS Slap Reference Sparks Backlash

Sometimes a single social media post can undo a whole week of goodwill in about ten seconds. Val Chmerkovskiy found that out the hard way this week, and by Thursday he was doing what a lot of celebrities in his position end up doing: apologizing, publicly and directly, and hoping it lands.

The Dancing With the Stars pro apologized to judge Carrie Ann Inaba after a post he shared following this week’s episode was widely read as a threat — a joke about slapping her, dressed up as a reference to one of the most infamous moments in awards-show history. He deleted the post. It didn’t matter. By then, screenshots were everywhere, Inaba had responded, and the show’s famously loyal fanbase had picked its sides.

It was, by any measure, a messy few days for a show that usually saves its drama for the dance floor.

What set it off on Tuesday night

It started, as these things usually do, with a critique. During this week’s live episode, Inaba took issue with a lift in the routine performed by fellow pro Jenna Johnson and her celebrity partner, Harry Shum Jr. Lifts have been a running sore spot on Dancing With the Stars for years — there are rules about them, judges enforce them unevenly depending on who you ask, and every season somebody feels like they got the short end of the stick.

Here’s the wrinkle that made this one different: Johnson isn’t just another pro on the cast. She’s Chmerkovskiy’s wife. The two married in 2019 after a long on-again, off-again relationship that fans had followed for years, and they’ve since welcomed a son. So when Inaba dinged Johnson and Shum’s routine over the lift, it wasn’t just a judge critiquing a dancer. To Chmerkovskiy, sitting in the ballroom and watching his wife get marked down, it felt personal.

That doesn’t make what came next okay. But it does explain the temperature. Anyone who has ever watched a partner get criticized in public — fairly or not — knows the feeling. Your blood goes up. Your thumbs get faster than your brain. And if you happen to have a couple of million followers, the consequences arrive just as fast.

For her part, Inaba was doing the job she’s done since the show’s very first season. She’s been at that judges’ table since 2005, longer than almost anyone associated with the franchise, and her critiques have always been blunt. Dancers love her and dread her in roughly equal measure, which is probably the sign of a judge doing the job properly. A lift call is routine stuff in her world. What happened after the show was not.

The post that lit the fuse

After the episode aired, Chmerkovskiy reportedly shared a post suggesting viewers had nearly seen a “Fresh Prince” moment enter the ballroom. The reference was unmistakable, and that was the problem. The “Fresh Prince” line pointed straight at Will Smith walking onstage and slapping Chris Rock at the 2022 Oscars — a moment that has lived on in memes and late-night monologues but that, for the people involved and for a lot of viewers, was genuinely shocking and ugly.

Chmerkovskiy deleted the post. Deletion, though, is basically a formality in 2026. Screenshots had already done their rounds, and the interpretation was swift and nearly unanimous: a lot of people read it as Chmerkovskiy joking — or worse than joking — about slapping Inaba for criticizing his wife’s dance.

Now, let’s be fair about one thing. We don’t actually know what was in Chmerkovskiy’s head when he posted it. People post dumb, heated things after live TV all the time. The charitable reading is that he was venting, reaching for the most dramatic pop-culture reference he could find, and didn’t think through how it would land. The less charitable reading is that he knew exactly how it would land and posted it anyway.

Either way, the effect was the same. A joke about slapping a woman — a colleague, a judge, a 58-year-old woman doing her job on live television — isn’t the kind of thing that gets a pass because you meant it as a joke. The Oscars slap itself was only four years ago, and it remains one of those cultural moments people still argue about, in part because it blurred a line nobody wants blurred: the one between a staged bit and real violence in front of a live audience. Invoking it as a punchline, aimed at a specific person, was always going to blow up.

And it did. Fast.

Inaba’s response said a lot with a little

Inaba didn’t write a long statement. She didn’t need to. After another celebrity news site reposted Chmerkovskiy’s comment, she weighed in on Instagram with a short, pointed question: “So this is what we’re doing now?”

Six words. That was enough.

There’s an art to a response like that. It doesn’t accuse. It doesn’t escalate. It just holds up a mirror and lets everyone else do the math. Fans flooded the comments, many of them siding with Inaba and calling the post out of line. Others — the show’s die-hards who have watched Chmerkovskiy for over a decade — argued he was just defending his wife and that the whole thing was being overblown.

That split is pretty typical of Dancing With the Stars controversies, honestly. The show’s audience is passionate to a degree that surprises people who don’t watch it. These aren’t casual viewers. They vote, they campaign, they know the pros’ backstories, and they treat the ballroom like family. When the family fights, everyone has an opinion, and the comments sections turn into a war of their own.

Inaba, for her part, has been through plenty of these cycles. She’s been a judge through cast changes, format tweaks, a move to Disney+ and back, and more social media storms than anyone could count. She knows how this works. A short, calm response, and then she lets the moment play out. It was, if we’re being honest, a masterclass in not taking the bait.

The apology

By Thursday, October 15, Chmerkovskiy had clearly realized the post wasn’t going to blow over on its own. He issued a full apology on his Instagram Story — not a hedged, “sorry if you were offended” non-apology, but a direct one, addressed to Inaba by name.

He said he wanted to apologize from the bottom of his heart for the post. He said he had already reached out to Inaba to apologize directly and personally, and that he wanted to apologize publicly too, because he understood his words reach far beyond the show’s internal family. He said he should never have made the reference, that he deeply regretted it, and that he recognized his platform comes with responsibility.

He also made a point that felt like the most self-aware part of the whole statement: that he needs to pause and think before he posts, to make sure what he’s sharing lines up with who he is and who he wants to be for his followers. That’s the kind of line that sounds like it came from an actual conversation with someone — a publicist, a wife, a friend — rather than from a crisis-PR template. Or maybe it came from staring at his phone on Wednesday night and realizing what he’d done. Either way, it rang true.

He closed by saying he was truly sorry to Inaba and to everyone he hurt with what he called a careless post, and that he would do better going forward.

As of this writing, Inaba has not publicly responded to the apology. That silence could mean anything — she might have accepted it privately, she might be waiting, she might just be done talking about it. Honestly, after her first response, she doesn’t owe the internet a second one. If the two of them have sorted it out behind the scenes, that’s their business, and the rest of us will see how it plays on Tuesday night.

Why this one landed so hard

Part of why this story caught fire is that Chmerkovskiy is not some fringe figure on the show. He’s one of its biggest stars. He joined the cast back in season 13 and has been a fixture ever since, winning the mirrorball trophy twice — first with Rumer Willis, then with Olympic gymnast Laurie Hernandez — and becoming one of the pros fans follow season after season, whether he’s competing or not.

He’s also, by reputation, one of the most competitive people in the ballroom. That intensity is part of his appeal as a performer and part of what makes him a lightning rod. When he cares about something, it shows. This week, it showed in the worst possible way.

There’s also the husband angle, which complicates everything. Johnson is a champion in her own right — she won the mirrorball with Adam Rippon — and she’s more than capable of handling a judge’s critique. But Chmerkovskiy clearly felt the need to step in, and that instinct, however understandable, is where a lot of people felt he crossed a line. Defending your partner is one thing. Doing it by invoking a slap, aimed at the woman who gave the critique, is another.

And then there’s the timing. Chmerkovskiy had already drawn criticism recently after debuting his hair in cornrows, a look that sparked its own round of backlash online. It wasn’t the same kind of controversy, not even close, but it meant he was walking into this week already under a microscope. When you’re already a trending topic for the wrong reasons, the margin for error on your next post is basically zero.

It all adds up to a familiar celebrity pattern: a small moment, a big platform, a fast escalation, and then the apology tour. The question, as always, is whether the apology actually closes the loop or just starts a new argument about whether it was enough.

What happens next

Dancing With the Stars airs live on Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET on ABC and Disney+, and the next episode will be must-watch television for reasons that have nothing to do with the dancing. Everyone will be watching the dynamic between Chmerkovskiy and Inaba — how she scores his routines, whether there’s any visible tension, whether anyone addresses it on air or whether the whole thing gets the classic reality-TV treatment of being politely ignored until it fades.

History suggests the show will move on, because the show always moves on. Dancing With the Stars has survived two decades of backstage feuds, judging controversies, and social media pile-ons. A bad post and a good apology, in that context, is a blip. The season will roll forward, new routines will take over the conversation, and by November this will be one of those things people half-remember.

But for Chmerkovskiy, the real test isn’t Tuesday’s show. It’s the next time something makes his blood boil — the next bad score, the next critique that feels unfair, the next moment where his thumbs start moving faster than his judgment. His apology promised he’d pause before posting. Everyone who saw this week unfold will be watching to see whether he keeps that promise.

And for Inaba? She did what she’s always done: said her piece, kept it short, and kept doing her job. The ballroom has a way of sorting these things out. The music starts, the couple takes the floor, and for two minutes, everybody forgets the internet exists. That’s the deal the show has always offered its audience, and it’s probably the best possible ending for this story — everybody back to the dancing.

Source: Just Jared