NEWSArtem Chigvintsev Would Get 'Really Mad' at Lea Thompson When They Were Partnered Together on 'DWTS' in 2014: 'He Was So Intense'
Lea Thompson exposed her allegedly bad experience on 'DWTS' roughly a decade after being partnered with Artem Chigvintsev on the show.
Artem Chigvintsev was "hard" to work with, Lea Thompson confessed.
During the Monday, September 9, episode of Cheryl Burke’s "S--, Lies and Spray Tans" podcast, Thompson sat down for a candid conversation about her experience being partnered with Chigvintsev for Season 19 of Dancing With the Stars in 2014 following his domestic violence arrest at the end of last moth.
Lea Thompson said Artem Chigvintsev would get 'really mad' at her when working together on 'Dancing With the Stars.'
"It was his first year and it was a big deal to him and he was so intense," the Back to the Future actress, 63, recalled of the professional dancer, who has since participated in a total of 12 seasons on the competition show.
Thompson admitted: "I didn't realize how important it was ... it was so much more important to him than to me, honestly. And so that made me really nervous. Like, it made me crazy after a while."
Artem Chigvintsev was paired with Lea Thompson for his first season as a professional dancer on 'Dancing With the Stars.'
The Jaws 3-D star said "some of the things" Chigvintsev "would say" to her were "very difficult" to hear.
"It was also really, really hard for me because I was a ballet dancer and a modern dancer and [the] first day he was like, 'I've never taken any of that stuff. I've only done ballroom.' And I'm like, 'I've never done ballroom,'" she noted.
Lea Thompson said she hit her breaking point during the 'fourth or fifth week' of her season.
"I was never allowed to say, can I try this?" she revealed. "[He] would get so mad at me because I can't do that. I can't think about that. I got all this stuff in my body. I mean, I did huge ballets. I did Serenade. I did, like, the great ballets. I did Swan Lake."
Thompson said her breaking point happened during "the fourth or fifth week" when Chigvintsev was teaching her a salsa routine.
- Nikki Garcia Admits Her Relationship With Artem Chigvintsev Wasn't 'Great for a Long Time' Before Sudden Divorce: 'I Played It Up'
- 'Heartbroken' Nikki Garcia Addresses Artem Chigvintsev Divorce for First Time After Domestic Violence Dispute: 'It's Been Really Tough'
- Starting Over: Nikki Garcia Deletes All Instagram Posts Days After Settling Divorce From 'DWTS' Pro Artem Chigvintsev
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"I remember once he was really mad at me because I was counting crazy," she explained, adding how she liked to recite her steps out loud. "He was like, 'Why are you counting like that?' And I was like, what?"
"It's so funny when I watched Dancing With the Stars, no one realizes how much you guys are screaming at us," Thompson confessed of the ABC series’ professional dancers. "I’m sorry. I was like, my mind works a different way."
Artem Chigvintsev was arrested for domestic violence on August 29.
Thompson sharing her negative experience working with Chigvintsev comes less than two weeks after he was placed under arrest just before 10 a.m. on Thursday, August 29, in Napa, Calif.
The 42-year-old was hit with a domestic violence charge after allegedly causing corporal injury to his spouse. Chigvintsev was released on a $25,000 bail the same day.
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While a rep for Chigvintsev's wife, Nikki Garcia, formerly Nikki Bella, asked for privacy at this time, the WWE star has yet to confirm her involvement in the situation, though it is presumed she was the spouse in question.
The incident occurred just days after the duo celebrated their second wedding anniversary on Tuesday, August 26. Her name was also mentioned in a 911 call phoning in the reported domestic violence altercation.
