‘Dancing With The Stars’: Maks Chmerkovskiy Returning As A Judge

Maks Chmerkovskiy will be returning to Dancing With the Stars as a judge, according to ABC News. On next week’s show, April 18, Len Goodman and Maks will serve as judges. It’s an appropriate move on a night with a theme of “Switch Up Night” that will pair stars of the entertainment and sports worlds with a different professional Dancing With the Stars dancers. The 36-year-old dancer talked about his one-night return to the reality TV show on Good Morning America.

“For whatever reason, they let me back in the ballroom. So next week I’ll be sitting behind the desk next to Len [Goodman] and they’ll be two of us dishing out criticism at everybody.”

In addition to sitting behind the Dancing With the Stars judging table instead of standing or dancing in front of it, Maks will be in the precarious position of having to judge his fiancee, Peta Murgatroyd, and his brother, Val Chmerkovskiy. Peta has been working with Nyle DiMarco and Val with Ginger Zee, two of the highest scoring competitors so far. Maks is committed to not allowing his relationship with the two influence how he judges their performance next week and joked that he hoped it wouldn’t change anything between them.

“We share a household for the time being but, you know, it’s funny because they go to their jobs. I do my thing. We don’t really talk about these things. When they ask me a question and want advice, I certainly give it but I kind of, like, stay in back.”

“Sometimes, I feel like they look at me like I’m an old man in the room, like, OK, you’ve done it so long ago. This is this new Dancing With the Stars. But, you know, we’ll see what happens next week when I get to put up a paddle.”

Maks and Val will be working together outside of Dancing With the Stars soon as well as they embark on a nationwide dance tour that will take them to 45 cities. The tour is titled “Maks & Val Live On Tour: Our Way.” The Dancing With the Stars veteran told AOL he’s as excited about all the new places they will see and the people he will get to work with as he is about the dancing.

“I am looking forward to towns we normally don’t get to go to. Towns like Kansas City, to say a big thank you to all the fans. The tour would not be possible without the fans.”

Maks competed in 14 seasons of Dancing With the Stars and won Season 10 with partner Meryl Davis, but that is only the beginning of the accolades he has received for his fancy footwork. He has a total of 10 dancing titles, and at the age of 16, he opened a competitive dance studio named Rising Stars Dance Academy that teaches youth. Maks is also the owner of six social and competitive dance studios that are named Dance With Me.

The list of Maks’ experience outside of Dancing With the Stars goes on. Outside of choreographing for stars on DWTS, he has also choreographed a commercial for Propel water, a water-based show titled Le Reve in Las Vegas, and a Zendaya music video for the song “Neverland” from Broadway’s Finding Neverland. Maks also appeared as the bachelor in the Ukraine’s version of The Bachelor, an experience he has admitted he didn’t enjoy.

Maksim Chmerkovskiy is 36-years-old. He was born in the Ukraine and started dancing at the tender age of four. His family left the Ukraine and moved to Brooklyn, New York, in 1994.

[Photo by Sergei Alexander/Getty Images]