Sad Dancing With The Stars Diaries: Val Chmerkovskiy Opens His Bleeding Heart

Sad Dancing With the Stars Diaries is a series in which we imagine the innermost feelings of Dancing With the Stars contestants, as written in their “journals.”

Hello to you, my journal,

I, Val, do not visit you often—probably because I feel that discussing one’s emotions is a sign of great weakness. But I find that this evening I was in such a state that this form of feminine venting is my only option. I cannot reveal to my dancing comrades that I am so full with sadness and anger but also joy, and so I must examine those feelings with you.

During the dress rehearsal yesterday, my partner, Tamar Braxton, was rushed to the emergency room, burning up with fever and pneumonia. My sweet, proud Tamar! O injustice! She had been working so hard, shooting The Real and performing in concerts and making me follow her all over the country—meanwhile, we had art to make.

She doesn’t know that I could never fault her for her drive. It is why I love her. And I love her so deeply and with such an uncontainable passion that some days I fear I may perish. But she has a husband and so after rehearsals I return to my condo to a number of beautiful women but no Tamars.

Tamar bravely performed our number during the dress rehearsal, but then disappeared. I learned she had been whisked to the emergency room where surely she would receive intravenous fluids and some much-needed bed rest. I have to admit it, journal, I cried.

When the show began, Tamar was nowhere to be found. So I went on stage, inconsolable, in my black warm-up waffle long sleeved t-shirt. I couldn’t believe it: the show was starting without her.

I paced nonstop for the full hour leading up to our performance. But she did not arrive. My prayers could not will her back. So, they showed our dress rehearsal which was just that—a dress rehearsal performed by a sickly angel. We were not highly scored.

But then, O joy! Tamar appeared for the second Cirque du Soleil-inspired number with Nick Carter and Sharna! She was off her steps, and afterwards her head kept lolling on my shoulder like a dying lamb. But every time it lolled, I inhaled her fragrance and I felt strength anew.

Alexa Penavega, the former child actor, performed a very moving dance about her bulimia disorder and also a very fun dance to the music from Chicago. Eventually the elimination came down to Alexa and her husband, Carlos, who is good, but doesn’t have the same life spirit as Alexa. But then they announced Alexa would be sent home, and I gasped (and so did Tamar and I felt her chest heave). Carlos was so sad. He sobbed. It is not manly to sob, but my journal, I have to admit I wish that I, too, could sob sometimes. Sob for my ever-unrequited love of my Tamar, sob for the beauty of dance, and for the futility of life.

I will rest my head tonight dreaming of a love like the Penavegas.

My heart is raw,

Val