'Dancing With the Stars' Season 22 Cast: Maks Chmerkovskiy Says Len Goodman Was Responsible For Voting Snafu [VIDEO]
Maks Chmerkovskiy has suggested that Len Goodman is responsible for the awkward mixup in scores in the latest episode of Dancing With the Stars.
Chmerkovskiy, Goodman, Carrie Ann Inaba and Bruno Tonioli were scoring Nyle DiMarco and Sharna Burgess' dance during Monday night's Dancing With the Stars when there was a moment of confusion. Chmerkovskiy and Tonioli held up their "10" paddles, but the graphic on the screen showed "9" for each of them.
Hosts Tom Bergeron and Erin Andrews cleared this up shortly after the scoring, noting that the judges send in their scores right after the couples dance, and that Chmerkovskiy and Tonioli's scores for that dance were 9s instead of 10s.
But Chmerkovskiy noted after the show that he and Tonioli had told Goodman to put down 10s but Goodman did not hear them properly (Goodman is in charge of handing in the list of scores to producers).
"[DiMarco] did get three 10s," Chmerkovskiy told Entertainment Tonight. "[Goodman] is what? 130 going on 150? So he can't hear very well. We're screaming, '10! 10! 10!' but he wrote down 9."
Even so, DiMarco wound up receiving the highest scores of the night, with a 37 out of 40. This likely cements his frontrunner status in the weeks to come.
Meanwhile, Chmerkovskiy touched on his harsh comments to Kim Fields and Keo Motsepe during the broadcast.
"It's literally not a Viennese waltz," Chmerkovskiy told them. "There was half a step of Viennese waltz. I can't even criticize the frame, because there was none."
Elaborating on these comments after the show, Chmerkovskiy spoke to the idea of tough love.
"I'm his friend. I hope he's still mine, but he definitely has to step up," he said. "I did this job for 10 years. I'm proud of this position, and if you're going to come and replace me, basically, you better bring what I used to bring."
Dancing With the Stars airs Mondays at 8 p.m. ET/PT on ABC.
