According to Maks Chmerkovskiy, Kirstie Alley once mistook his dance moves as something else while rehearsing for Dancing With the Stars.
“Kirstie Alley told me, ‘Oh, my God. You’re so flirty.’ And I was like, ‘What do you mean?’” the former DWTS pro, 45, recalled on the Monday, February 24, episode of the “Sibling Revelry” podcast. “[It was] in rehearsal and it’s on tape, and she’s like, ‘Yeah, look where your hand is.’ I’m like, ‘My hand is where?’ She’s like, ‘All over my back.’”
Though Alley seemingly interpreted the touch as a flirtatious gesture, Chmerkovskiy clarified that it was all technical. “I’m like, ‘Your gravity is down. I got to use two hands sometimes to move,” he explained before joking, “’It’s not ‘cause I love you that much.’”
The pair competed together twice on DWTS during season 12 in 2011 and season 15 in 2012, coming in second place and seventh place, respectively. Their relationship took a turn when Leah Remini joined the cast of DWTS season 17 in 2013 — the same year Alley called Remini, 54, a “bigot” for her criticism of Scientology.
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The conflict led to Chmerkovskiy and Alley cutting ties due to his friendship with Remini. “She stopped getting along with me. I think the world of her. I’m not judging people by their religion. I’m Jewish. I don’t really believe in science fiction, whatever,” he said on Watch What Happens Live in July 2014. “Now that I’m associating with other people, that [she said] she can’t be associated with, I am no longer to be spoken with.”
Two years later, Chmerkovskiy exclusively told Us Weekly that a friend of his received a note stating he was “no longer allowed to be Kirstie’s friend.” He added, “I find it ridiculous for an adult human being to ‘disconnect’ from someone. But everyone is entitled to their own insanity.” He later criticized Alley in February 2022 for stating she didn’t know “what’s real or what is fake” about Ukraine’s ongoing conflict with Russia.
Despite their ups and downs, Chmerkovskiy paid tribute to Alley after she died at age 71 in December 2022 following a battle with colon cancer. “We haven’t spoken lately and I’ll tell you everything when I finally see you, but for now I want to say that I love you very much and I wish you the most peaceful rest,” he captioned a pic of them on DWTS via Instagram at the time.
He went on to call the late actress “one of the most unique people I have ever met and easily one of the brightest moments of my personal and professional life.” He also compared their relationship to a “wild roller coaster.”
He concluded his tribute by writing, “I thought you’d be around forever. I wish we spoke often. Thank you for everything. I love you Kirstie Alley.”
On Monday’s podcast, Maks brought up his memory of Alley while discussing how DWTS pros keep things professional with their partners with his brother, Val Chmerkovskiy. “There’s a duality to it. It’s a little bit of both,” Val, 38, shared. “It’s a balancing act [to] have a partner that you can talk to and vent to and be reassured from. Then it’s cool. But if you don’t have that, then yeah, it’s an issue. It’s a big issue.”
Maks, for his part, noted that only “one relationship out of [the] 17 seasons that I did” turned romantic. Though he didn’t name which of his past partners it was, Maks said the romance was “short-lived and it was a mistake all the way in the beginning.” He went on to wed fellow DWTS pro Peta Murgatroyd in 2017, and the two have since welcomed three kids together.
