Eight months before, in the summer of 2016, Normani had been swept up in a nasty case of cyberbullying that showed just how ugly the internet can be. The incident got triggered by a Facebook Live interview, when she was asked to say nice things about each one of her Fifth Harmony bandmates. Normani seemed to hesitate in describing a member who had just left the group.
“She is—let’s see. Very quirky. Yeah, very quirky. Cute.”
No big thing, right? But fans went berserk on social media, reacting way over the top to an offhand comment that they somehow construed as disrespectful. She hadn’t gone all gushy the way she was apparently supposed to do. The trolls came out in force. An image showed up online of Normani’s face pasted over a historical image of a lynching.
So, boo hoo, right? Happens every day. To a certain audience, the reality of cyberbullying doesn’t seem like a big deal. Brush it off, go on with your life, and if you can’t stand the heat, blah blah blah. But life is different for kids born around the turn of the millennium. Because social media is such an integral part of their world, the nastiness of the internet has become a huge mental health issue for them.
Parents used to worry about kids getting bullied on the school playground, back when children were on the playground for an hour a day, the playground was in the neighborhood, and kids knew exactly who the bully was. Nowadays social media is a 24/7 phenomenon, an endless universe that features some very dark psychological matter. It’s a fake world that has become a generation’s reality. I’m a product of it as well, as we all are now to some degree.
“Hey, let me get this person,” says some rancid little troll staring at a computer screen. “What can I do to her? Oh, look, she’s black, let me pick on that!”
For the family, it is painful to see a child go through trauma that they can do nothing about. When my brother was robbed of his Rollerblades when we first moved to America, at least my dad could come out in his socks, and the punks knew that at some point somebody was going to show up. Nobody could come to Normani’s rescue on the internet. How many of the trolls can any single person respond to? How many people could her mom answer? It wasn’t happening.
Normani grew up in Houston and was Texas through and through. She was an American girl. She’s wholesome, goes to church, loves God, and was one of the kindest people I had ever met. Now race was being thrust forward in her life in a very public, very direct way. She wound up being hounded off Twitter because of the bullying.
We came up with a piece that worked as an answer to the bullies, but also served as a sort of therapy for Normani’s post-traumatic stress. “Freedom” was a song that seemed to address the whole situation perfectly.
Felt like the weight of the world was on my shoulders
Should I break or retreat and then return . . .
But I’ve come too far to go back now
I am looking for freedom, looking for freedom
And to find it cost me everything I have
I choreographed a routine that opened with Normani stranded in the middle of a mob who were all pointing their fingers at her. She was surrounded, and you could feel the heaviness in the air as I put myself into the circle and pulled her out of that reality. We danced a contemporary that symbolized the quest for freedom from all the shitty things in the world, all the repercussions of angry, vile group-think. My character pushed her to find her strength, find her freedom, help her defeat this mob mentality that had been holding her down.
Not giving up has always been hard, so hard
But if I do the things the easy way I won’t get far
Life hasn’t been very kind to me lately
But I suppose it’s a push for moving on, oh yeah
In time the sun’s gonna shine on me nicely
Somethin’ tells me good things are coming . . .
I’m looking for freedom, looking for freedom
We went all in. Normani actually cut her hair for the routine. I dressed her in rags, stripping away the pop-star persona she was normally dressed in. As she emerged from the circle of negativity and oppression and we danced, I began screaming at her to break free.
“Go! Go! Go!”
On television, viewers could not hear me yelling, but the live audience could. On camera everyone sensed my energy. In replays the shots of the audience showed stunned faces all around. At that moment Dancing with the Stars ceased to be a pop show and became something else, a testament to the endurance of the human soul. Anybody can be exposed to the nasty side of life, not just the glitz but the shit of life, and how we react makes all the difference.
In the routine Normani came off as so strong, so honest, so undeniably vulnerable and human. We ended up in the middle of the circle, fingers pointing at her once again, but with us looping around and knocking their hands down one by one. They peeled off and we wound up embracing in the center of the floor, where she collapsed exhausted into my arms. What I wanted to show with the piece wasn’t all negative. I wanted to demonstrate that with the help of maybe just one other person, no matter what situation you’re in, you can find the light.
It was one of the most important pieces of choreography I’ve ever done in my life, easily the best dancing I had ever done on the show. All of a sudden I felt fulfilled. I decided I didn’t need to travel to Rome or Barcelona in order to feel that I’d grown, that I’d made a connection. That I made a difference. I could cry right now, writing about it.
With the help of the show, we had re-created some of the most important moments of Normani’s life. Forget her entertainment life, her professional life—this gave her validation as a person, as an individual. It brought her family closer. On the surface, the whole world, including me, believed the girl had it all. But deep down, she didn’t believe she was talented, didn’t think she was “worth it,” to pun on the title of another Fifth Harmony hit song.
I watched her change. She ended the season filled to the brim with overflowing inspiration. She was no longer what the cyberbullies made her out to be, “the black girl from that pop group.” She had broken free as Normani Kordei, as a dignified human, as an artist. Her smile shined brighter than ever and her voice had more bass to it now. She came of age, and her family was there to witness the transformation. To see her take her life back on her own terms was an incredible thing, and I was a small part of that.
Final Thoughts
I know it’s more than slightly ridiculous, a thirty-one-year-old writing a memoir. Also comical, arrogant, and bizarre, all those things. Shouldn’t I have actually lived a life before putting mine down on paper?
But I hope this book will be the first of many from yours truly. What you’ve read is an account of me growing through a quarter century as a dancer, at times in ballroom competitions, but mostly on a reality show called Dancing with the Stars. And as I said from the get-go, I’m not just a dancer, and I’m not just the Dancing with the Stars guy. Like my fellow Brooklyn homeboy Walt Whitman, I contain multitudes—and yeah, I just compared myself to one of the world’s greatest poets. I look forward to a future where I can trot out all my multitudes and dance them around the floor. Next up, I’ll Never Change My Layup, a thrilling book about my battles on the hardwood.
Looking over these pages I can see that I wasn’t doing my own memoir at all—I was writing a double autobiography of me and my brother. He was and always will be so much a part of me that the phrase “my life” is meaningless without him being part of it. At least up until this point in time, it’s been more like “our life.” What I’m most happy about, reading over what I wrote, is that I can see our relationship has never stood still, it has always evolved, and that it has finally settled into a very good place.
We are better friends now, better allies, better people.
When Maks married in the summer of 2017, taking for his wife the incredible artist, standout Dancing with the Stars pro, two-time Mirrorball winner, and all-around hottie Peta Murgatroyd, he didn’t have far to look for a best man. For the o
ccasion I had to really reflect on our relationship, feeling a great deal of responsibility to try to voice what my brother means to me as best I could. It was before this book was written, and my thoughts back then represented a pretty accurate portrait of our love and commitment to each other. I would like to present you with the speech I made that day, which I’m really proud of but which you should forgive because I was more than slightly intoxicated at the time.
Ahem.
Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Val Chmerkovskiy. I am the best man, and, well, I couldn’t have thought of a better title. Given the competitive nature of the groomsmen I will indeed flaunt this one for as long as I can.
Jokes aside, the best title I’ve ever had wasn’t necessarily the two world championships that I won, the fifteen national titles, or the German Open win. It wasn’t the Blackpool title, or being named concertmaster of a youth orchestra at age fifteen, or being high school valedictorian, or a two-time Mirrorball winner. And no, not the rock-paper-scissors victories, the in-house Ping-Pong championship, or the three-on-three recreational basketball wins, or that one time they gave me a trophy for smiling the most in second grade.
Now, if you’re thinking, “Wow, he’s certainly not the most humble . . .” you are correct. That is one title that has evaded me for all these years. Nor was I ever a valedictorian, by the way—I just kind of threw that in there for effect.
Anyway, I digress. I was pinned with many titles in my life and some were more dear to me than others. Being a son to the greatest parents of all is up there with hopefully being a decent friend to some. My newly acquired title of being an uncle—boy, was this a special one, life changing—it even made it to my Instagram bio.
But out of all these titles the one that has the most presence in my life, the one that is tied to pretty much every important moment I’ve ever experienced (including the ones I just named), the one I’m most unapologetically proud of . . . is the title of Maks’s little brother.
Yes, believe it or not, he’s older, even though today after shaving it certainly doesn’t look like it.
“Hey, wait a minute . . . are you?!”
“Yes! I am Maks Chmerkovskiy’s little brother!”
That’s the reply I’ve played on repeat to the world that has gotten to know us in the last ten years.
“You look like that guy from . . .”
“Yeah? You mean that brash, emotionally irresponsible, aesthetically exceptional Russian dude from that reality dance show?” Yeah, I know. He’s my brother.
But our life began a long time before the glitz and glamour of Hollywood tried to overproduce a brotherly rivalry that just never existed. My brother and I shared everything together, from growing pains to personal triumphs. Nothing was ever personal between us, it was always shared. When I hurt, he suffered. And when I won, he celebrated. When life wouldn’t even give us lemons, we rallied and planted our own trees.
We worked together, sharing the stage at Russian restaurants in Brighton Beach as teenagers, enduring ego checks nightly as the odor of intoxication and herring filled the air. Nonetheless we gave it our all, trying to perform the best hip action east of the Hudson River.
We lived and slept in the same room together, sharing everything from conversations, to bunk beds, to the adult magazines we used to hide underneath them. From the little apartment in Odessa, to the even smaller apartments in New York, we shared it all.
I remember Maks coming with me to Blackpool one year, when we shared a room so small that we had to rest our legs on our suitcases, because only our upper bodies fit on the bed. I remember lying there thinking, “Wow, this is the greatest shit ever!” since I never felt poor, I never felt small, I never felt unhappy with you by my side.
I once wrote:
You are the roof
that kept me dry
and when I asked to fly
You took me underneath your wing
And flew against the wind,
so high
I wrote that years ago, and I mean it more today than I ever did.
We shared it all and continue to do so. Being your brother has by far been the greatest gift the world has ever given me.
I am so grateful. Especially for that one time when Igor, Alex, and I got arrested for truancy in ninth grade and we all had to call our homes. An ass whooping was inevitable, but not for me. They didn’t have an older brother to pretend to be their dad, and I did.
They didn’t have an older brother to bulldoze through life’s disappointments and heartaches, as I walked behind enjoying the wisdom of hindsight. It’s hard to explain our bond to people, why my sense of loyalty and camaraderie is the way it is. Why, as grown men we still cuddle—yes, we cuddle sometimes when Peta’s not looking.
Very few will understand what pickles and milk means, or stolen Rollerblades, or being a breadwinner at age seventeen, what it’s like to be an example to not just me but to all my friends. I struggled vicariously through you and you enjoyed life vicariously through me.
I love you, bro, and it is absolutely incredible for me to see someone next to you who loves you even more than I do.
Peta Chmerkovskiy, aka “Murgasnitch,” aka “Lamborghini Mercy,” aka “Turn-up Extraordinaire”—I love you.
I love you more than you love the E channel and Keeping Up with the Kardashians. I couldn’t have imagined my brother sharing the rest of his life with anyone else. You have given him a greater purpose and a greater focus. You truly made him into a man. I’ve never seen him more in love or more driven than when he’s around you. You are his true love, his muse, his wife, his teammate, the point guard to his team. And when ball is life—trust me, that’s a huge compliment.
I wrote once:
Maks, realize that
Love is really blind
Brother, if you stay true to you
In time true love will find you
Looking at you now, as man and wife, I can confidently say you both have found true love. I wish the two of you a life of camaraderie, respect, health, and happiness. I hope you two continue to inspire each other, continue to grow together, and continue to be the incredible parents that you are.
To a few more kids, a lot more smiles, and a lifetime of memories . . .
I love you both dearly!
The simple message of the first tattoo I got, “Family Over Everything,” still holds true above all. At first, it was just those simple three words, along with “keep it moving,” that represented my personal motto. But over time I went back to the studio for more ink, adding to the design until it took over my whole bicep—my extremely large (I wish), hard as steel (not likely), often shirtless (yup) bicep.
I think of the tat now as telling the story of my life, starting out with the core value of family, then getting enlarged with more experiences, more embellishes, more design.
In the Chmerkovskiy family, we always stay true to our roots. Three of the guests at Maks’s wedding were among those original seven kids who showed up at the Rising Stars open house, two decades before. Many of my friends are Rising Stars alumni, and many of them have been on Dancing with the Stars as members of the dance troupe. I’m in touch with almost all my competition partners from the past, and I count as close friends the celebrity partners I’ve worked with, as well as many of their families.
This book is a testament to the friendships and relationships I’ve cherished over the years. Their support is another sign for me that what I’ve written is not just an ego-stroke, but a validation of real ties I’ve made, friendships that weren’t just for show and weren’t one-sided either, but two-way streets that we built together. Without the friends, allies, mentors, and partners I’ve had in my life, I would just be a fool dancing alone in a solo spot.
My moms and pops, my grandmother in Far Rockaway—we all maintain strong bonds even though we are usually a continent apart. I see them often, and always feel the urge to communicate to my mother and father the gratitude I feel. I want to tell th
em how grateful I am for all the sacrifices they made for me, for all the tools they’ve given me, and to assure them their youngest son is fine and thriving in the world because of the opportunities they provided.
Thanks, Maks. Thanks, Moms and Pops. I love you more than words can say—even though I’ve just used 300 pages of words to communicate that fact as best I can.
I’VE ALWAYS BELIEVED THAT YOU’RE ONLY AS GOOD AS YOUR last performance, and whatever Dancing with the Stars season I just completed always seems to be my best one yet. It might be a question of me improving all the time, not so much as a teacher, dancer, or choreographer, but simply getting better at living life altogether.
As I write this, I am in the middle of, yup, my best season ever. That has nothing to do with me, and everything to do with the incredible individual that I lucked out getting as a partner.
Victoria Arlen is a Paralympic gold medalist from New England with an incredibly inspiring story. She grew up very active and sporty, but when she was eleven years old she came down with transverse myelitis and acute disseminated encephalomyelitis, rare infections that made her brain and spine swell. She gradually lost feeling in her extremities, and then her speech went as well. One morning she woke up and found she couldn’t move at all. She was “locked in,” aware, able to hear and think, but incapable of expressing herself.
At eleven and a half years old, she heard a doctor inform her parents that recovery was impossible.
“She’s not going to make it,” said the so-called expert. “You just have to accept the fact that your child is going to die.”
Imagine Victoria hearing and understanding those chilling words, but being unable to call out, react, or object. The doctors didn’t really have a prognosis. They had no idea how to address her condition, and when physicians don’t see a clear path to a cure, their reaction can be to throw up their latex-gloved hands in defeat.
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