‘Dancing with the Stars’: Maksim Chmerkovskiy on show’s celebrity problem
Now that he has officially retired now as a pro dancer for “Dancing with the Stars,” Maksim Chmerkovskiy is at least not holding back when it comes to one major facet of the ABC show: The quality of the actual “stars” who are appearing at this point.
While we would argue that the show has never exactly had a great crop of celebrities, it has gotten worse in recent years. There are times when we only know about 60% of the cast at around the time of the announcement, and that’s as someone who works full-time in the business of knowing famous people. Typically in its prime, there were maybe only one or two stars that we would have to Google to figure out.
In speaking with Andy Cohen on Bravo’s “Watch What Happens Live,” here is what Maks had to say specifically about some of his issues right now when it comes to the show’s overall celebrity level, but also how much he enjoyed his past experience with Meryl Davis:
“I saw that there were a lot of changes last season. I took a year off. I skipped two seasons and I came back. I personally fell in love with the show. It’s not something I need to say now that I’m not even part of it, but it’s definitely amazing entertainment…I do think it needs to stay on. I’m a big supporter of anything dance related, and I think it’s brilliant.
“My problem is that we’re running out of legitimate celebrities. That’s the problem.”
Will there be an effort to cast bigger names on the coming season? Sure, but we feel like there always has been. The issue more is that these names tend to have something better to do than participate in this show. There’s only so much money producers have to work with, and there’s pressure to still have people who can deliver great dances. So we cannot really see anything changing in regards to the casting, unless there are famous people who are actually more interested in the future.
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Photo: ABC