I'll Never Change My Name Read online

  Dedication

  This book is dedicated to my mother, who made me the man I am today.

  And to my father, for setting an example every single day.

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Foreword by Maksim Chmerkovskiy

  I Am Valentin Aleksandrovich Chmerkovskiy

  Part 1: A Journey in Dance

  DWTS

  First Season

  Steps

  Part 2: A Journey in Life

  Family

  Odessa

  Immigrant

  School

  Music

  Part 3: A Journey in Dance

  Zendaya

  My Teenage Dreams Come True

  Rumer Has It

  Part 4: A Journey in Life

  Rising Stars

  Choices

  Competition (1)

  Competition (2)

  Dance with Me

  Lust

  The Ukrainian Bachelor

  Leaving

  Part 5: A Journey in Dance

  Two Pair

  Laurie

  Harmony

  Final Thoughts

  Valentin Chmerkovskiy: Competitive Ballroom Dance Record

  Gratitudes

  Photos Section

  About the Author

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Foreword

  Val told me that he is writing a book and asked if I would write a Foreword. I knew nothing about what that even means, but obviously I said “yes” and have been thinking about it ever since. He semi-insisted that I read a few chapters before writing this, but I declined, because while this is one book I myself have been waiting for, I really don’t need to read it to know that everyone else definitely should. I can imagine what you all are thinking: “Obviously! You’re his brother and you should say only nice things, blah, blah, blah.” But if you really know me, you’d know how I refer to myself as “nothing but a traffic light.” I just say it how it is.

  Val became my brother at age zero (I was only six) and became my student at around age ten (I was only sixteen, obviously). So you have to understand that our time spent being brothers was limited to sometime before Val’s puberty until sometime after he turned twenty-five. At that point he had a talk with me about how “he wasn’t my student anymore” and that I needed to recognize “the grown-ass, accomplished, proud man standing in front of me.” I will never forget that day. It’s the day Val “officially relieved me of my duty.”

  I never asked to be anyone’s coach. It just sort of made sense. I would take a lesson for fifty bucks and then teach Val what I had learned. Simple and cost effective. Fifty bucks for a dance lesson at that time for our family was like stabbing yourself in the thigh with a fork. No permanent damage, but it hurts like hell. Again, I know what you’re thinking: “Okay, Maks, that is so dramatic!” But I assure you that every immigrant like us at some point had to part ways with fifty bucks for some “cha-cha lessons” and felt extreme pain, because that was like a tenth of the family’s net worth!

  I was a tough coach. I had very limited time, no finances, and lots of personal crap to deal with because I was still a freakin’ child myself, but I loved Val so much and with so much passion that I wanted so much good for him. I did my best and coached the shit out of him and his partners! I will let Val tell you about his life as a competitive ballroom dancer, but I will only say that in our debut as a student/coach duo we managed to whoop some serious Juvenile Blackpool Champion ass (sorry, Mark Ballas, you know it’s all love, but it’s also all true).

  Our parents’ favorite saying while we were growing up was, “When we die, you’ll only have each other, so you can never fight.” And we never fought. I may have, one time, sorta shoved him, but I wouldn’t remember and I would have to have been super pissed about something, because I could never inflict pain on him. We weren’t twins, but we were so close that I felt his pain every time he hurt. Which happened a lot. I mean, this kid could not stop either falling on his face, or getting elbowed in the face, or getting his bottom lip stuck in the wheels of a skateboard (I will let that marinate with you for a second, but it really happened). I also always had a near–heart attack experience whenever Val and his partner were waiting for a result of a just-finished competition. In hindsight I was a fool, because my guy almost never lost.

  Vicariously through my brother I too am a multiple-time World Ballroom Latin Dance Champion and a whooping seventeen-time United States National Latin and Ballroom Dance Champion, I too am a Concertmaster Violinist in the Manhattan Music Symphonic Orchestra, I too am a poet, a rapper, an amazing point guard with a Shawn Marion shot, the bowler with the highest average that one summer, a rock-paper-scissors legend, and an impromptu-speech-giving god, but what you will find in the ensuing pages is that Valentin Aleksandrovich Chmerkovskiy is also a rare breed of a person due to an almost magical collection of life experiences.

  I assure you that while you’re coming to an end of my Foreword, I too am coming to an end of reading it. Probably not my first time, either, half because I’m making sure I don’t sound stupid and half because I’ve probably read a billion Forewords by now and just want to compare “mine to theirs,” LOL. I’m sure Val will be diligent in explaining where our competitive nature and pursuit of perfectionism is coming from. I too am about to turn the page and read something fresh, creative, empowering, educational, without a doubt extremely well written, and definitely profound AF. So, without further ado, do yourself a favor and read this book.

  P.S. You’re welcome ;).

  —Maksim Chmerkovskiy

  I Am Valentin Aleksandrovich Chmerkovskiy

  In the summer of 2016 I had just come off a national dance tour and was heading into my eleventh season as a professional dancer on the reality TV talent show Dancing with the Stars. The tour took me all over the United States with my older brother Maks, the two of us dramatizing the story of our lives. “Maks & Val: Our Way” told the saga of the Chmerkovskiy brothers, immigrating to the States from Ukraine and conquering the international world of ballroom dancing.

  We had written and choreographed the show ourselves, and bringing it to towns in almost every one of the fifty states changed the lives of all those involved. Maks and I celebrated our adopted home of America through imagination and dance, and there was laughter at every performance, and tears, too, both on our faces and on the faces we saw out in the audience. We were welcomed beautifully and managed to connect with people from all corners of the country.

  That summer politics dominated the American landscape. Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders battled it out, and Donald Trump completely turned the political world on its head. Dancing in a show that honored love of our country, told through the eyes of two immigrant brothers from South Brooklyn, I traveled across the heartland during the full heat of the primaries, through the perfect storm of the party conventions, and amid competing barrages of partisan rhetoric. I felt like I was getting a crash course on democracy.

  As if the news cycle wasn’t loaded down enough, that was also the summer of the Rio Olympics. Even there, politics and patriotism entered into the mix. Because of the European migrant crisis, refugee participants were given special status to compete. Some pretty astonishing figures broke through during that Olympiad, and among the most prominent were the U.S. women’s gymnastic team, the “Final Five” who brought home the team gold and collected a dozen medals in all. They were real-life superheroes—I was going to say they were like Powerpuff Girls on steroids, but in the sports world maybe that’s not the best way to put it.

  The dance tour I was on with Maks took i
ts final bow in San Jose, California. I flew back to the New York area, where my parents lived, where I grew up, and where I considered my true home to be. A friend of mine used to say that people should either travel the world or live in New York City, because it amounts to the same thing. After two months of total immersion in America, the urban streets felt alive and electric, and I just wanted to plug myself in again to the big-city vibe.

  Dancing down the crowded sidewalks of Manhattan (actually, I walked like everyone else), I ducked into a corner bodega for a coffee, the kind that if you order “regular” comes with milk and sugar, served in an iconic blue “We Are Happy to Serve You” cup. The Olympics were winding down by that time, but on the flat screen behind the cash registers, the climactic moments of the women’s gymnastic events were playing out.

  The team that year represented the best of America, the same incredibly diverse country that I had witnessed while out on tour. Laurie Hernandez, Simone Biles, Gabby Douglas, Aly Raisman, and Madison Kocian offered a rainbow of colors, backgrounds, and styles. They were in the midst of becoming the most dominant Olympic gymnasts ever, a lineup of super athletes that everyone in a politically divided country could get behind.

  All the customers in the bodega, at least, were behind them, gazing transfixed at the TV screen. I’ve been a fan of gymnastics, an amateur fan if you will, my entire life. I glanced up and saw something that immediately caught my eye: a small-statured girl, very young, super charming. Beyond an obvious incredible athleticism, she had a special quality about her, a calmness in the middle of a pressure-packed situation.

  The hard-to-put-your-finger-on-it essence came through in the way that she handled herself. She wasn’t just an Olympic athlete, but a little star. A lot of athletes want to be celebrities and celebrities were always trying to be athletes, but here was someone who combined the best of both worlds in one compact package.

  “Damn, who is this girl?” I thought to myself. She was in the middle of a tumbling routine, and on one of her passes she did something I thought was amazing.

  She found the camera. That’s how we say it “in the biz” when someone on TV breaks the fourth wall and looks straight into the lens. It makes for an instant connection. My mentor, Mandy Moore (the legendary choreographer, not the pop singer), had to work really hard to teach me the mechanics of finding the camera, because the move can easily look crazy and intrusive if overdone or done tastelessly. Well, this girl nailed it perfectly.

  I vividly remember the moment I fell under her spell. She stuck the landing, raised her arms, and gave a wild, triumphant smile. From my time on Dancing with the Stars I knew the ability to find the camera was an essential skill for any performer. In one so young, that single move signaled some badass sass, as well as confidence and experience way beyond her years. It was as though she had winked at the whole scene, having fun with it.

  I laughed out loud, shaking my head in appreciation. “Who does this lil’ girl think she is?” I was blown away. I couldn’t hear the commentary because it was a New York corner deli with a lot of noise going on, orders flying back and forth and sirens screaming by outside. But I remember the graphic coming up to identify the athlete.

  “Lauren Hernandez, Old Bridge, New Jersey.”

  I couldn’t help it, I called out, “Let’s go, Jersey!” New Jersey, my second home state behind New York. I knew Old Bridge, and had spent my teenage years in Saddle Brook. I felt a swell of pride. I wasn’t that deeply familiar with the world of gymnastics, but I had never seen many Hispanics among the ranks, so Lauren—everyone called her “Laurie”—was a revelation in that respect, too. This sassy Puerto Rican girl from New Jersey who could find the camera—well, all she was missing were the big hoop earrings and her boyfriend’s name on her necklace and she’d be singing, “I’m still Laurie from the block.”

  “All right, Laurie Hernandez from Old Bridge, New Jersey,” I said to myself, “you got my attention, little star.”

  Then I grabbed my coffee, left the store, and didn’t think anything more about it.

  Dancing with the Stars matched professional dancers like me and my brother with celebrity contestants who were singers, actors, media personalities, entertainers, or sports figures. I had only a few days before the scheduled announcement about which couples would be paired off to compete on Season 23 of the show, which would premier in September.

  As is the case in real life, on Dancing with the Stars no one tells you beforehand who your partner is going to be. The choice of dance partner had been made for me, and going into the season I remained in the dark.

  In the days leading up to the announcement, the buzz among the professional dancers rose to new heights, with multiple texts flying daily, almost hourly. Everybody thought they had the inside scoop. The burning topic? Who was matched with which celebrity contestant.

  “Who do you got? What do you know? I got this person, and I heard you got that person.”

  I tried to stay out of the crossfire of gossip. I actually didn’t want to know who my partner was going to be. I preferred to be truly surprised when the revealing moment was taped, and if I knew beforehand I would have to fake my reaction. I’d rather be honestly disappointed than be dishonest with how I felt.

  Whomever she was, I would be spending a very intense three months of my life with this person. We would be diving in deep—physically, emotionally, and even, yeah, spiritually deep, maybe as deep as two human beings can possibly get over the course of ninety days. Pretty damn deep, let me tell you.

  The “first meeting” segments were like mash-ups of a blind date and an arranged marriage, with a little bit of a shotgun wedding thrown in, too. Normally they took place in Los Angeles, organized by Deena Katz, the show’s casting director, but at times they were shot elsewhere, for the convenience of the celebrity involved. The meetings were all done on camera. The producers liked to spring the news on the contestants with the videotape rolling in order to increase the drama. When we were finally introduced, our reactions were shot in close-up, to be broadcast so that thirty million people could dissect and debate every nuance of the match.

  What partner I was assigned made all the difference. Would we be simpatico? Was she passionate about dance? Would there be chemistry between us? Season after season the first meetings made for a crazy, only-in-show-business challenge, but one that kept me coming back to the show every year. Not knowing made the process sweeter and more intriguing to me.

  So I didn’t want to be told, but my dear brother Maks was determined to tell me. After more than twenty seasons on Dancing with the Stars, he was totally dialed in to all the backstage chatter.

  “Deena gave me an address in New Jersey for my partner first meeting,” I told him.

  “New Jersey, really? Hey, I know who that has to be. Bro, you got matched up with that Muslim chick, the fencer who competed in the Olympics, remember her? She made a big splash by competing in a head scarf.”

  I did a quick Google search. “Ibtihaj Muhammad?” I said, mangling the name as I pronounced it.

  “Yeah, Muhammad, that girl.” Maks laughed, considering the whole situation to be comical. “A Chmerkovskiy and a Muhammad doing the salsa—only in Hollywood!”

  Deena took care of casting for the show, and wore a lot of other hats, too, acting as the liaison between celebrities and dancers whenever friction arose. She was the one who settled the dust and made sure everything ran smoothly.

  On my way to the meet, she again got on the phone with me. “Listen, you’re meeting your partner later today and we’re really excited. Please call me right afterward and tell me how it goes. Oh, and stop in the parking lot when you get there and wait for the camera crew, because we don’t want to ruin the surprise.”

  I followed the GPS directions through the wilds of New Jersey. Just before arriving at the address Deena gave me, I received a text from Shawn Johnson, the Olympic gold medalist who had been a winner on Season 8 of our show and then returned for Season 15. Eve
n though we had never been paired up as dance partners, we built a solid friendship and kept in touch from time to time.

  “Oh my God, I’m so excited. You better be nice to her or I’ll kill you. She’s like a sister to me.”

  “Shawn,” I texted back, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I mean, Hi. How was your summer? I hope you’re doing well.”

  “Oh my God—you mean you don’t know?”

  “No.”

  “Oh my God, please don’t tell Deena. She’s going to kill me.” Shawn tended to kick off all her texts with “Oh my God.” I think she had the words programmed into her cell phone so they just automatically came up.

  “All right,” I texted back. I was conflicted. I didn’t want to know, but I wanted to know. “I’m not going to blow the secret, but just tell me who it is.”

  “No, no, I can’t,” Shawn replied.

  At that moment I pulled into the parking lot at the address, a huge pole-barn-style gym in Monmouth, New Jersey. Maks had gotten the sport wrong. It wasn’t fencing, it was gymnastics. A big banner hung across the façade of the facility.

  CONGRATULATIONS TO OUR LAURIE HERNANDEZ ON HER AMAZING JOURNEY IN THE OLYMPICS!

  I took out my cell and texted a photo of the banner to Deena.

  “Way to be discreet about the whole thing, but I promise to act surprised.”

  That banner might have given me a hard-to-miss hint about who I’d be matched up with that season, but I would still be a surprise to Laurie. I had to sit in the parking lot for a half hour, waiting for the crew to mic me up. I thought back to the week before, recalling that epiphany moment in the New York corner deli where I saw her for the first time.

  During the course of the Olympics, Laurie Hernandez had become the quintessential American girl. She was America, the way America looked right then. In my eyes, she was the spirit of the new reality in the country, the beautiful one I had encountered in towns all over the United States that summer while on tour with my brother. Laurie Hernandez, a new American heroine—or rather, a heroine for a new America.