“In a moment where my instinct was to defend my wife, I made a poor decision to reference a meme to ‘keep my wife’s name’ out of the conversation, without stopping to think through what else that reference could imply, which was genuinely never my intention,”

Val Chmerkovskiy · said date not stated · reported 2026-10-21

Chmerkovskiy released a statement in response to his suspension, clarifying that his intent was to defend his wife and not to threaten Inaba.