Former Dancing With the Stars pro Gleb Savchenko has thoughts about Alan Bersten stepping in for Val Chmerkovskiy during his Dedication Night suspension.
“Alan, I think he’s Alan. I mean, he’s just not up to the level of dancing, like, period,” Savchenko, 43, said during a recent TikTok livestream screen-recorded by fans. “[The] quality, the technique. He’s a good dancer, I guess, for TV but if we talk about art? Like creating art? He’s like, eh.”
Savchenko further stressed that he doesn’t “want to talk s***” about a former DWTS colleague, claiming he is “just being honest.”
“I don’t have anything against the guy, just, why Alan?” Savchenko, who voluntarily walked away from DWTS ahead of season 35, lamented. “Who else is there? Give, what’s his name [a chance]? Who’s on troupe?”
The DWTS season 35 troupe features Carter Williams, Jaxon Willard, Onye Stevenson and Kamri Peterson. Savchenko also thought that “B,” likely referring to eliminated pro Brandon Armstrong, would make a good match for Chmerkovskiy’s celebrity partner, Jenna Dewan.
Us confirmed on Saturday, October 17, that Bersten, 32, will dance a Viennese waltz with Dewan, 45, on the October 20 live show after her pro partner, Chmerkovskiy, was unceremoniously benched for making allegedly threatening comments about judge Carrie Ann Inaba. (Inaba, 58, had criticized Chmerkovskiy’s wife, Jenna Johnson, for an illegal lift in her Super Bowl Night samba, prompting the Ukrainian dance pro to defend his spouse via social media.)
As Dewan and Bersten prepare for their sweet dedication to the Rookie actress’ mother, Savchenko pondered whether they were a good match.
“‘Cause Jenna’s small and Val is a little smaller than Brandon and Alan, so who [else] would I put her with?” he asked himself. “I don’t know.”
Chmerkovskiy, 40, has not publicly addressed Bersten standing in his place on Dedication Night but planned to support Dewan from afar.
“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,” Chmerkovskiy wrote in a Saturday statement shared with Us. “Carrie Ann certainly didn’t deserve to get caught in the middle of my bad judgment, and I hate that she was.”
He continued at the time, “The last thing I want is to become a distraction from an important week or from the incredible work my dance partner Jenna Dewan is putting in. Please send Carrie Ann, Jenna, and the whole DWTS family lots of love during Dedication Night. I’ll be watching and cheering everyone on!!”
Neither Bersten nor Dewan have publicly addressed their weeklong partnership or Savchenko’s comments.
Dancing With the Stars airs Tuesdays on ABC and Disney+ at 8 p.m ET.
