Carrie Ann Inaba says the lift fight that followed a recent Dancing With the Stars show should lead to a new rule next season. In a comment on Instagram, the judge said she wants the show to reset how lifts are handled after the dispute involving Jenna Johnson and Val Chmerkovskiy.
That push comes after a string of public back-and-forths that turned a routine judging call into a wider argument over how the ballroom competition is run. Inaba called out Johnson’s lifts on Oct. 20, and when Johnson pushed back, Inaba said she read her the definition on the spot. Chmerkovskiy then posted on TikTok, “You almost saw Fresh Prince enter the ballroom last night,” before quickly deleting it.
Inaba said she had stayed quiet because of professional courtesy for people still competing, but added that she and Johnson hugged it out after the Super Bowl show. She said Johnson was an absolute professional about the moment, then later learned that Johnson was deeply hurt. Inaba also said she offered to speak with Johnson at any time and to explain how she enforces the lift rule herself.
That is where the dispute moves beyond one performance. The current rule is meant to protect safety and fairness, Inaba said, but she added that the show has changed, the cast has changed and the audience has changed too. She said the best fix would be a session with all the dancers and the judges in the same room to go over the history of how Len Goodman, the original producers and she defined the rule in the first place.
The friction is that Inaba is now calling for a broader reset after a clash she already treated as resolved face to face. She said she and Johnson worked through the moment, yet also made clear that the hurt was real and that the rule itself may need to change. That is the part the show cannot avoid if it wants the next controversy to look different from this one.
Studios had already said Chmerkovskiy would not compete for one week after his social media post and later said he would not participate in next week’s show. Chmerkovskiy apologized on Instagram and said he had personally reached out to Inaba. What happens next is not whether the debate fades; it is whether Dancing With the Stars turns Inaba’s call for a new lift rule into something written before next season begins.
