“I want to apologize from the bottom of my heart for my recent post. I have reached out to Carrie Ann to apologize directly and personally, and I also want to apologize publicly as I understand my words affect so many outside of our internal DWTS family. I should have never made the reference that I did and I deeply regret it.”

Val Chmerkovskiy · said 2026-10-15 · reported 2026-10-21

Chmerkovskiy publicly apologized to Inaba in an Instagram statement on Thursday.