Carrie Ann Inaba & Val Chmerkovskiy Hug It Out After ‘Dancing With The Stars’ Suspension Drama

It was all professional between Carrie Ann Inaba and pro dancer Val Chmerkovskiy on the Dancing with the Stars set after all the drama.

The judge and the contestant hugged it out on the set of the ABC dance competition, a moment that has now gone viral, which you can see at the end of this post.

It was Chmerkovskiy’s first week back on the show after his week’s suspension following comments directed at Inaba.

On the October 13 episode, Inaba pointed out lifts in Jenna Johnson’s performance. During the episode, Inaba and Johnson had a tense exchange about the definition of a lift.

Chmerkovskiy, who is married to Johnson, posted a shady comment on social media saying, “You almost saw Fresh Prince enter the ballroom last night.” The comment referenced Will Smith taking the Oscar stage and slapping Chris Rock to defend his wife.

After the comment, Chmerkovskiy earned a one-week suspension, with BBC Studios calling the pro-dancer’s social media post “inappropriate” and not reflecting “the values or standards expected of anyone connected with the show.”

Chmerkovskiy has since then deleted his social media comment and apologized to Inaba, saying, “In a moment where my instinct was to defend my wife, I made a poor decision to reference a meme to ‘keep my wife’s name’ out of the conversation, without stopping to think through what else that reference could imply, which was genuinely never my intention. Carrie Ann certainly didn’t deserve to get caught in the middle of my bad judgment, and I hate that she was.”

As for Inaba, she shared a social media post recently where she said that “Jenna and I hugged it out after the Super Bowl show,” adding, “Jenna was an absolute professional about it, and two women worked through the moment. It came to my attention later that Jenna was deeply hurt. So I also offered to speak with her at anytime. I have also offered to discuss the lift rule and how I enforce it.”