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Dancing With the Stars' Peta Murgatroyd Weighs in on Scoring Debate

As Dancing With the Stars’ season 34 continues, former pros on the ABC show Peta Murgatroyd and Maks Chmerkovskiy shared their thoughts on scoring in an exclusive E! News interview.  

By Olivia Evans Oct 22, 2025 6:25 PM
| Updated Oct 22, 2025 6:50 PM
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Watch: DWTS' Maks Chmerkovskiy and Peta Murgatroyd Weigh in on Scoring Debate

Peta Murgatroyd isn’t dancing around her feelings about this topic. 

As fans of Dancing With the Stars’ 34th season continue to voice their thoughts about the scoring system—with some accusing the series of being rigged—the former pro and her husband Maks Chmerkovskiy shared their thoughts. 

People are very vocal this season, I think it’s just because it’s a very much younger audience and demographic that are watching the show now and they just want what they want out of the judges,” Peta explained to E! News at the Gala of the Stars Benefitting Dancers Against Cancer event. “They want the scores they want to see. And when one person gives a lower score than all the other judges, they tend to flip out over that type of stuff.”

And while Peta isn't encouraging fans to be so upset with the ballroom judges, she had to admit, “It kind of adds to the press of the show and it adds to people talking.”

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Meanwhile, Maks was a lot glibber about sharing his two cents. As he joked, “This is the quietest I’ve been while trying to speak at the same time.”

Of course, the 45-year-old—who shares Shai, 8, Rio, 2, and Milan, 15 months with his wife—was a lot more willing to emphasize the importance of the gala, which raises money for those fighting cancer

“It’s going to be a fantastic evening tonight,” Maks gushed. “We’re going to honor a lot of people and we’re going to raise a lot of money for a very important cause.”

And on top of being brought together for their philanthropic efforts, Maks also emphasized the spotlight being put on dance. 

Robin L Marshall/Getty Images

“It’s important that the dance community does this,” he continued. “We’ve seen some—in my lifetime—success and we stuck around. Dance is really prevalent. Seeing the resurgence and the highest numbers and the participation, audience and such. We’re not going away.”

For more on this season of Dancing With the Stars, keep reading… 

Baron Davis

Partnered with Britt Stewart

Jennifer Affleck 

Partnered with Jan Ravnik

Alix Earle 

Partnered with Valentin Chmerkovski

Dylan Efron

Partnered with Daniella Karagach 

Corey Feldman

Partnered with Jenna Johnson

Elaine Hendrix 

Partnered with Alan Bersten

Robert Irwin 

Partnered with Witney Carson

Jordan Chiles 

Partnered with Ezra Sosa

Scott Hoying 

Partnered with Rylee Arnold

Whitney Leavitt

Partnered with Mark Ballas

Hilaria Baldwin

Partnered with Gleb Savchenko 

Andy Richter

Partnered with Emma Slater

Danielle Fishel

Partnered with Pasha Pashkov 

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