Season 34 of Dancing With the Stars kicked off just last week, but there’s already plenty of drama happening behind the scenes.
Former DWTS pro Maksim Chmerkovskiy recently opened up about some of the pairings and said that his sister-in-law, Jenna Johnson — who is married to his younger brother, Val Chmerkovskiy — is struggling to work with her partner, Corey Feldman.
“All the cast show up, you know, all smiles and say how great they are together and ‘we’re friends’ and blah, blah, blah, but that’s surface. Sometimes it’s not the case,” Chmerkovskiy, 45, told the Daily Mail in an interview published on Tuesday, September 23. “Obviously, Jenna has a bit of an uphill climb with Corey, which is easy for everybody to say from [outside], but I know that she’s having a much more difficult time with this entire thing and to the point that it is really difficult for her.”
While some have speculated that Feldman’s age of 54 might be a factor in why Johnson, 31, is having such a hard time, Chmerkovskiy said that wasn’t the case.
“I think that it’s a combination [of technique and work ethic],” he explained. “Maybe it’s not such a comfort zone for him. Don’t forget this production is not just about you and your partner dancing, it’s about this massive behemoth of everything that’s happening – the amount of people that you have to deal with, the amount of interviews, and this is all between your rehearsal time and your therapy, and you are trying to lick your wounds and all that stuff.”
Disney/Eric McCandless
This wasn’t the first whisper of trouble behind the scenes involving Feldman. Shortly after the cast for season 34 was announced, fans noticed Johnson wasn’t posting videos on social media of their rehearsals like most of the other stars are. She later revealed that The Goonies actor had been missing from practice.
“So many people have been like, ‘Where are your TikToks with Corey? What’s happening?’” she wrote in response to a fan on Instagram. “To be completely honest, I actually haven’t seen him since Good Morning America.”
During the DWTS season premiere on September 16, Feldman and Johnson tied for the lowest score of the night with their tango to Billy Joel’s “It’s Still Rock and Roll to Me.”