I'll Never Change My Name

by Valentin Chmerkovskiy

  But like they say, when you’re broke you have the time, and when you finally have some money, you ain’t got the time. My schedule had been relentless. I was coming off five straight midseason tours, both my own and ones with the Dancing with the Stars cast. The 2016–2017 off-season Dancing with the Stars tour was the best-attended yet, selling something like 130,000 tickets. That was more than ticket sales for the first two arena tours combined, back in the good old days when the show tours had just begun.

  Screw the good old days—these were the good old days, and I was living them in the moment. My status as one of the leading pro dancers on Dancing with the Stars was hard-won. I had just made it to the top with Laurie Hernandez. I had managed to solidify my position as the new sheriff in town. I had always wanted to be “the Guy,” and now that I had realized my goal and had become the Guy—one of them, anyway—I should have felt happy and fulfilled.

  “Hey, by the way,” I would humble-brag, “have you heard that I just took home my second Mirrorball Trophy?”

  So I was living the life. Out on the road with the Dancing with the Stars tour, I got to witness the reaction of the fans, see the country, and become familiar with every nook and cranny of the United States of America. What could be better?

  But somehow a tiny element of doubt crept into my mind. Was I personally being fulfilled? I felt like an ungrateful little shit, but if I was honest with myself, I had to admit that, no, I wasn’t fulfilled. It drove me crazy, because I was facing what’s called a first world problem, you know? Get everything you want, live the high life, pin on your new sheriff star. What the hell? You are still not satisfied?

  I could not dodge the feeling. The basic question I posed to myself was the same as it always was: Was I growing? Financially, yes, indeed, my bank account was growing. But was that all there is? Was I growing as a person?

  My true wealth came from an inner sense of growth, of transformation, of connection. Way back at those meet and greets during my first season on the show, I had realized that connection was important to me. I needed to learn about other people, and to do that, I needed to experience other cultures. I learned through travel and learned through immersing myself in history. That kind of activity was just incredibly fulfilling for me, and that’s what I was missing.

  I spent most of my younger years traveling overseas to competitions. All the family money went into that air ticket to Berlin for me to dance in the German Open, or to Prague, Turin, Moscow, London. Without really being aware of it, I became bit by bit a true cosmopolitan, a citizen of the world. By my early twenties, I found myself having worldly conversations with older adults, discussing, say, the intricacies of the architecture by Gaudí in Barcelona, how impressed I was by its impact on public space in the city.

  “Gaudí’s genius of cutting all the corners off his structures creates little squares throughout the city, and that allows more opportunity, spatially, to erect monuments or install pieces of art.”

  Huh? Had those words really come out of little Valya’s mouth? I was twenty-four, and still a kid, but I had been all over the world. I could speak confidently about my architectural impressions, or about how I thought the South of France was overrated, or about the time I spent at Blackpool or on the island of Capri.

  “Hey, I just stayed in Naples with my boy Nino Langella for a couple weeks,” I’d find myself saying. “Tough as nails environment, but a really picturesque place.”

  But all that travel had taken place before my tenure on Dancing with the Stars. In the years since, my international forays had been cut off, and through tours and appearances I’d been instead immersed in an exhaustive—and exhausting—exploration of America. It was the best thing ever, because I got to know the greatest country in the world, inside and out. But for a five-year stretch, I had essentially been landlocked in the States.

  Thinking it over, I decided that I was missing my old vagabond days of globe-trotting. I mean, maybe I had been a little fucking nuts to have gone on five straight off-season tours. I lived onstage and I thought that was all that mattered to me. Talk about the Grateful Dead—me and the rest of the pros on the tours were like the grateful dancing dead. I used to have dreams about being on a tour bus while I was actually asleep on the Dancing with the Stars tour bus. Living out of a suitcase became more comfortable to me than having a home. I felt less anxiety, just having a suitcase, because there were fewer decisions to be made every morning.

  Question to myself on the road: “Aw, man, which shirt am I gonna wear today?”

  Answer: “The same motherfucking shirt you wore yesterday, bro.”

  Our super-successful off-season tour was over, and that spring I was headed into my next appearance as a pro on Dancing with the Stars. There were other elements contributing to my unease, like the breakup of a four-month relationship. In the week-long stretch between the end of the tour and the start of the season, I took my nagging little doubts to a four-day yoga retreat in Arizona, trying to sort everything out.

  I was coming up on my thirty-first birthday and for the first time in my life had some respectable digits in my bank account. I wasn’t exactly Bill Gates, but at least I could buy my mom a gift, help my family, help my friends. I finally got to be the man of my little tribe. That had been the motivating goal of my life for as long as I could remember. I always sent out the same message to whomever supported me.

  “Wait ’til I make it, I’ll give you way more than what you’ve given me. I’ll give back to you tenfold on this shit. I’m the best investment you guys ever made.”

  So I was able to fulfill those promises, but while I was out there doing a downward-facing dog in the desert air of Arizona, the question still remained. What about me? What did I want for myself? I was blessed to have work, but at some point, to be effective in my work, I had to mandate a moment for myself as a human being, to recharge my batteries.

  I had to travel. Not just in America, either, but in the wide world of Europe, Asia, fucking Oceania if I wanted to. I had a contract for another season on Dancing with the Stars, and I would do what I signed up for. But I decided I would not commit to another off-season tour. My brother was getting married that July, and I couldn’t just take a couple of days off from a tour for that. After five and a half years of ping-ponging between nonstop tours and seasons on prime-time TV, I promised myself a breather. I was going to live my life.

  Extricating myself from the lotus position, I left Arizona and returned to L.A. to find out who I’d be matched with for Season 25.

  “Your new partner’s going to be doing this event at a rodeo in Houston,” the producer told me. “We want you to do the first meeting segment with her there.”

  We ended up shooting the footage in front of 70,000 people at NRG Stadium, normally where the Houston Texans played their home games in the NFL. The biggest rodeo in the world was happening at the venue that night, with girl-group megastars Fifth Harmony as featured entertainers.

  I went along mainly because later in life I would be able to say that trademark line, “This is not my first rodeo.” The scene in the stadium totally blew my mind. I’d never been to a rodeo before, and I had never been around so much horse shit outside of Hollywood. I waited in the wings as Fifth Harmony took the stage.

  “Normani Kordei is about to do Dancing with the Stars,” the MC called out, naming one of the group’s singers. “Surprise, folks! Here is her new dance partner!”

  I came onstage and the audience cheered like crazy. It made for an epic moment, definitely in keeping with my new partner’s celebrity status. I was shocked at first, in the same way I had been shocked that Rumer Willis had wanted to do the show. Normani Kordei was a huge star, a member of the biggest-selling all-female pop group since the Spice Girls. I was stunned that somebody of her stature would sign on. Dancing with the Stars was a hard project to do, a pretty intense gig. When you’re busy with your own career, why in the world would you want to embark on the super difficult journey of doing
the show?

  Oddly enough, Normani had joined Fifth Harmony courtesy of an another reality TV talent show, X Factor, where she tried out as a solo singer and hadn’t made the cut. However, producer Simon Cowell saw something in her, recruited four other singers who had also tried out and failed as X Factor solo acts, and put them together to create Fifth Harmony.

  Even though some pop stars tended to be a little bit diva-ish, I immediately felt quite an opposite vibe from Normani. I got a peek behind the pop-star curtain and saw an unpretentious, fairly insecure twenty-year-old girl who struck me as being really down. “Down” was, of course, one of Fifth Harmony’s big hit songs. Normani came across as somewhat lost and at the same time excited, but with no real idea what the upcoming experience would be like. The only reference point she had was X Factor, an experience that for her had been all anxiety and intimidation.

  “We’re going to be working real hard,” I told her. “Are you ready for that? What are you doing in the meantime? Do you even have time for this show?”

  “I’m a huge fan of Dancing with the Stars,” Normani said, dodging the question. “I’ve watched nearly every season with my grandma. Grandma Barbara is an expert. She loves you. She keeps a catalog of everyone who’s been on.”

  For myself, I was excited to have Normani as a partner, because she was a performer, so at least we had that element in place. But I had seen Fifth Harmony in concert, and I wondered how much her experience in the group was going to transfer. She was expected to look pretty onstage, with minimal movement, including some shallow—no offense—commercial type of choreo.

  “Look in the camera, smile, touch your boobs and keep it moving.” I knew the Dancing with the Stars process had a lot more to it than that.

  Houston was Normani’s home turf. She was born in New Orleans and lived there for years before Katrina hit. Her parents had just moved into the house of their dreams when the hurricane came and swept their whole life away. As did many other Katrina refugees, the family relocated to Houston, where Normani’s dance teacher became a second mother to her. Just as it had been for me when my family relocated, dance became Normani’s escape, and the dance studio served as a safe haven from all the craziness going on in her world.

  I GUESS SOMEONE WAS LISTENING WHEN I WISHED THAT I could travel the world again, since Season 25 turned out to be the most outrageously elaborate, multileg, frequent-flyer, jet-set trek I ever accomplished in my life.

  For the first three weeks of the show, Normani was on a multi-stop tour of Asia with her group. I went along to rehearse with her, feeling as though I had been sucked into the pop-star whirlwind. Our schedule turned insane. We ended up doing Dancing with the Stars live as usual on Monday night, going straight from the show to LAX, getting on a flight to Asia that night, crossing the date line, and landing on Wednesday morning. The Fifth Harmony tour started with Okinawa, then moved on to Tokyo, Hong Kong, Philippines, Malaysia, and Singapore.

  One week, because of the schedule crunch, Normani wound up flying a red-eye back to L.A. to arrive on Monday morning, with only minutes to spare for the car ride to Television City. If there had been a cyclone over the Pacific, which happens all the time during that season, she would never have made the live show.

  I pictured myself trying to explain to America that, believe it or not, this was actual live television, where shit happens, and, obviously, shit felt like it always happened to me. Normani was a girl who traveled with a lot of bags, and she was flying internationally, where there were so many factors that could cause delays.

  What made the whole business easier was having a field producer along from Dancing with the Stars who really knew his craft—Adam, from Staten Island, New York City. We meshed perfectly and shared a lot of common experiences. He was a diehard basketball fan with a New York Knicks tat. We were cut from the same cloth. I had grown up making fun of losers from Staten Island all my life, and when we were together the trash talk flowed both ways.

  Plus he was the absolute best cameraperson in terms of getting shots in the middle of crazy, exotic settings. One way or another, Adam would figure it out, because he had that confident, not to say cocky, attitude of a native New Yorker. He didn’t need release signatures because he knew how to duck the camera in order to get the shot with no bystanders involved. He understood what it took to put a package together without having to shoot hours of footage for a one-minute spot.

  With Adam operating the camera and the girls of Fifth Harmony as willing participants, we fucking killed it. Far from being a grind, going on tour with Normani actually wound up being the best time—in fact, one of the best times I’ve ever had on the show. I know you’ve heard that from me before, but it’s true and it’s actually how it should be. I always want my last season to be the best one.

  The accepted wisdom on music tours has advised stars to stay cool and not get involved with the locals. “Sit in the hotel and just chill.”

  I wasn’t having any of that. “We’re in Malaysia. Let’s go!” Or “I’ve been to Hong Kong before, and you’ve gotta see this!” Or “This is Tokyo, and I know a great place in the Ginza area.”

  We ended up celebrating my thirty-first birthday in Tokyo. I took out Fifth fucking Harmony to the Kill Bill restaurant, the one re-created for the movie. All of a sudden, I’m at a hibachi dinner preaching to them about how great they are and how, individually, they will do everything they want to do, but together, they have the opportunity not just to provide for each other, but to inspire and entertain and make so many people happy. If I hadn’t been dancing on the show, they would have hired me as their manager right there and then.

  While I had my usual understanding that I had to make allies of Normani’s parents, I knew it was equally important to build a partnership with her group, because that was her second family. If the members of Fifth Harmony felt invited to be a part of her journey on the show, they’d be a lot more supportive of me taking her away every ten minutes to work on our cha-cha, and Normani herself would be more likely to open up to me and to the whole Dancing with the Stars experience.

  I wanted Normani Kordei to be able to communicate her truth to the audience. To do that, she had to come from a point of safety and comfort. “I’m actually not all about that onstage sass. I’m a young girl, and I have insecurities just like you do.” That was a message that I knew she wanted to convey to the world, and for the first time in her life she had the opportunity to do so.

  After dinner, we hit a club where a friend of mine from New York was deejaying.

  We hung out, they danced, and everyone bonded. I sat next to their long-time tour manager, Will Bracey, somebody who would become a solid friend.

  “Bro, I’ve been touring with these girls for years now,” Will told me. “I mean, they’ve appeared everywhere, seen it all, done it all, and I’ve never seen them have this much fun together before.”

  Part of the reason was that in that little Tokyo club, the members of Fifth Harmony were anonymous. The place wasn’t packed, but instead resembled a private refuge of our own, with good people, the best vibes, and a sense that we were all in it together. The night changed the group’s dynamics, which can get pretty claustrophobic in a pop act, as the Beatles and the Stones and Oasis have demonstrated. It actually did them good to celebrate someone else, to sing “Happy Birthday” to me at the airport, and to focus on someone outside of the group.

  That all happened in week one of the season—Dancing with the Stars premiered on March 20 and my birthday fell four days later. I could gauge how Normani’s spirits rose, despite the frantic back-and-forth shuttling across the Pacific. We’d fly nonstop from the Asian tour whirlwind, only to dive into another whirlwind in L.A. It was an insane schedule, but somehow it wound up fueling our mutual excitement.

  For the first time in a long time, she was able to find her purpose as an individual, not just as a member of Fifth Harmony. Just like this book gives me my own voice outside of a television show, Normani found
the experience of creating art outside the group to be life-changing. She was better in Fifth Harmony because of it, and I’m better on Dancing with the Stars because I have writing as an outlet.

  One of the highlights of the season for me was getting to know Normani’s grandmother, Barbara, a super sassy lady. In fact, if Normani had half the sass that her grandma had, it would have made surviving in show business much easier for her. Barbara ended up being the guiding spirit behind Normani doing the show, which became a shared experience for them. A long-time Dancing with the Stars fan, she would put together costumes for Normani based on what she saw on the set.

  But I found out Barbara’s secret: she wasn’t on Team Val after all. She was on Team Maks. From the moment he showed up on Season 2, my brother had been her boy. Humble old me, who had usually sat first chair with my violin whenever I was in youth orchestras, had to play second fiddle with Barbara.

  To be successful on Dancing with the Stars, a celebrity has to connect to the audience. How could people relate to a pop phenom who sells out arenas and is a fancy, supersexy twenty-year-old? Where’s the average human experience in that? The cameos that Normani’s grandma made on the show helped, but in the end, we were able to bring out the human connection in the most spectacular manner. That accomplishment was the true Mirrorball Trophy—which she and I didn’t wind up winning, by the way. In my mind, we did something better.

  It happened in week seven of the season. The producers did a special program, where the pros were allowed to choose music we thought best suited our celebrity partners. This was an awesome opportunity for me to take a chance creatively.

  I picked “Freedom,” a song by Kelvin Wooten, Anthony Hamilton, and Elayna Boynton from the soundtrack of Django Unchained, an intense number that would normally never have been approved for the show. Because of a certain incident that had happened in her recent past, I thought it fit Normani perfectly.

  “Look,” I said to the producers, “so you’re going to okay this song, right? And we’re doing it exactly how I set it, right? Because I’m going to talk about it on camera during rehearsal and that’s how it has to go.”