Dancing With the Stars pro Val Chmerkovskiy candidly recalled having to go through with a performance shortly after his wife, Jenna Johnson, experienced a miscarriage.
“Don’t ask how I got to this video from a few years back, randomly going through my posts. But I can’t help but reflect, this was an impromptu last minute performance with [my brother] Maks [Chmerkovskiy], because my wife (whom I was supposed to perform with) just experienced a miscarriage,” Val, 39, wrote via Instagram Story on Monday, March 31, alongside footage of him and Maks, 45, on the dance floor. “Now it’s a few years removed and we have a beautiful boy, but this was that ‘the show must go on’ moment that I now am so torn about.”
Val found it difficult being away from Johnson, 30, as they both grieved, adding, “My wife was literally in the room upstairs in absolute agony emotionally and physically, and I had never personally felt such loss myself. I was numb, I was empty, and all I could think about was Jenna.”
Despite the personal challenge, Val still had a job to do. “But I put on a smile and I put on my big boy pants and I did what I’d done my entire life, make sure I didn’t let anyone down. Showed up and performed. People paid money, people made plans, people were counting on me,” he noted. “Not even sure what the point of this message is outside of I guess a question. When does one get the license to give up? When do you just finally surrender and say no? When is it ok to not show up?”
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He concluded: “I have no regrets and I was up there with my lady shortly before and very soon after, and NO ONE KNEW (I told Maks Jen hurt her neck & needed him to save the day for me), and therefore no one asked this of me. But man….. what a moment, and how confusing it all is.”
Val and Johnson met while working together on Dancing With the Stars and started dating in 2015. They tied the knot four years later. In January 2023, the couple welcomed their son, Rome. Johnson later opened up about a miscarriage she suffered before getting pregnant with Rome.
“It’s crazy how you can experience so much joy followed by so much devastation and sorrow,” Johnson shared on the “MomForce” podcast in June 2023. “I ended up miscarrying. We were doing a show in Dallas, Texas and we were rehearsing for the show and it was a huge event that was gonna be happening all weekend … and Val and I were practicing in the afternoon.”
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Johnson realized during practice that something was wrong, saying, “I start running to our hotel room and get to the hotel room and I’m just gushing blood. And I end up miscarrying in our room and it was. It was just terrible. There is no other way to go around it. You’re so helpless. There’s nothing you can do in that moment.”
The professional dancer was grateful for the support she received from loved ones and those who experienced a similar loss.
“It just became so apparent to me, I am not alone in this, and this is something that needs to be spoken about because of all the feelings that I had felt, all of that trauma, all of that darkness,” she continued. “It put me in a deep depression for about eight months. It really did. It just needs to be talked about.”
