Not all Dancing With the Stars partnerships are a match made in ballroom heaven, but there’s no bad blood between Alix Earle and Val Chmerkovskiy on season 34.
The duo aced their jazz routine to “What Is This Feeling?” by Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo during Wicked Night on Tuesday, October 21, earning 35 points out of a possible 40. When asked after their performance whether the song choice was a nod to the rumored tension between them, Earle, 24, brushed off the speculation.
“You know, online, people say a bunch of stuff, but I can say, behind the scenes, it’s all love,” the influencer exclusively told Us Weekly. “I feel like there’s a lot of fans online this season, which I know is newer and just it keeps growing as the show grows. But I’m so happy we got the song we did, and it was really fun for us to kind of tap into that.”
Chmerkovskiy, 39, added that there are “bangers throughout” the entire Wicked soundtrack, so there were no bad options.
After the competition kicked off in September, rumors swirled online that Earle and Chmerkovskiy weren’t on the best terms as they rehearsed. Earle previously shut down the chatter in a “Get Ready With Me” video last month.
“It’s so funny, because I feel like we’re becoming besties,” she said at the time. “I think we both just have sarcastic personalities and maybe we need to chill that out, because it does make us look like we hate each other.”
Alix Earle and Val Chmerkovskiy on ‘Dancing With the Stars’ Eric McCandless/Disney via Getty Images
Earle and Chmerkovskiy have successfully put the drama behind them on their path to the mirrorball trophy. Their scores have improved each week, but when it comes to the judges’ commentary, Earle isn’t always able to process the feedback in real time.
“After doing a dance, it’s such an adrenaline rush. I black out every time,” she joked to Us on Tuesday. “I’m like, ‘I don’t even remember until I watched the dance back what I did.’ But [the] judges’ comments are so great and so nice, and it’s just encouraging to keep pushing myself and keep pushing us in this dance journey.”
As the competition heats up, Earle is even throwing in her own ideas for choreography. While some fans thought there was a slip-up at the end of their jazz routine — Chmerkovskiy appeared to drop Earle after a big lift — the pair reassured Us it was intentional.
Alix Earle gave fans a close-up look at how her body is adjusting to the hard-core schedule of Dancing With the Stars. “Week 2 is not going as smoothly for big al hahaha,” the 24-year-old influencer captioned a TikTok video on Sunday, September 21, taking fans with her as she got “unready” from rehearsal. Earle […]
“I was like, ‘Well, it would be really fun,’ because the actual ‘What Is This Feeling’ song ends with a scream and Elphaba thunder … so I was like, ‘You should drop me, and then I should, like, come back in front of you and pose,’” Earle explained. “So that was something we added a few days ago.”
Chmerkovskiy joked Earle is fully in charge during the rehearsal process, adding, “She is calling the shots. She’s the muse for a lot of our creative juice.”
With Halloween Week on the horizon, Earle is ready to keep challenging herself and working for those perfect 10s.
“It was a really fun night, and I think every time we leave show nights, I just am like, ‘OK, I’m ready to do more [and] keep pushing myself,’” she told Us on Tuesday. “I’m honestly a little brain dead right now. I can’t speak, [but] I want to keep pushing myself to do better each week. And I think looking around [at] everyone else in the competition and their dances, everyone’s so good and so talented, and it’s so fun to watch everyone just keep continuing to surprise themselves every week.”
Dancing With the Stars airs on ABC and Disney+ Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET.
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