While Maks Chmerkovskiy’s wife Peta Murgatroyd is competing on Dancing with the Stars, Maks is taking care of the household responsibilities alone.
In an interview with PEOPLE that took place after Tuesday night’s Halloween event, Murgatroyd, who is 37 years old, discussed how helpful her husband has been when it comes to caring for their two kids, Rio John, who is 4 months old, and Shai Aleksander, who is 612 years old.
“He’s on daddy duty full time right now,” adds the professional dancer, who is paired with Barry Williams, who played Brady in The Brady Bunch. “He’s going trick-or-treating with Shai right now. Therefore, this is the first year that I haven’t really been there, but he’s doing a fantastic job.”
She continues, “He’s always supporting,” in reference to Chmerkovskiy, who is 43 years old. He has feelings for Barry. He is constantly cheering for us to do well. Therefore, he is the finest.
Murgatroyd also discussed her connection with Williams, 69, saying that it “wasn’t hard” for the two of them to form their bond when speaking to People magazine. She claims that “Barry is just the best guy to be with for six hours a day,” and that their connection was incredibly natural right from the start.
Williams and Murgatroyd earned their greatest marks so far this season with their Viennese waltz to “It’s A Man’s Man’s Man’s World” by James Brown, which they performed on Tuesday’s program and received a total of 31 out of a possible 40 points.
Murgatroyd told PEOPLE that the couple has a hard few days ahead of them as they prepare to take on the quickstep the following week. The quickstep will be one of the dances that the two will be doing.
She explains, “I’m going to be teaching Barry a lot of new moves this week, and we’ve got the team dance also, so it’s going to be a very big week for us,” and she is right. “However, I believe that things will work out for the best.”
After bringing Rio into the world in June, Murgatroyd returned to the dance floor three months later. And just a few days after the baby was born, she and her husband, a former contestant on Dancing With the Stars, gave PEOPLE an exclusive interview in which they introduced the child and announced his name.
“Rio was a wonderful surprise that turned out to be our last destination. It’s the ideal finishing touch for our lengthy family name!” Murgatroyd is quoted as having commented at the time. “We also wanted something easy to say with Shai.”
The Murgatroyd family chose to memorialize the Murgatroyds’ late father, Derek John, who passed away in December 2022 by giving their child the middle name John.
The first time that Murgatroyd and Chmerkovskiy crossed paths was on Broadway in 2009, and they began dating the following year. They went on to have Shai in January of 2017, and they finally were married in July of that same year.
After 12 years on the program, Chmerkovskiy announced in the same year that he was stepping down, and he subsequently indicated that the expansion of his family was a factor in his choice.
During an interview on The Real, he said, “I’m a dad, I’m a husband,” adding that “your chemistry changes when you have a child — things look different, they seem different.”
The professional dancer did, however, make a brief appearance in the ballroom earlier in this season in order to pay a heartfelt homage to the late head judge Len Goodman, who passed away in April at the age of 78.
Chmerkovskiy participated in a stunning dance homage to Goodman with his fellow alumni Kym Johnson-Herjavec, Tony Dovolani, Karina Smirnoff, Anna Trebunskaya, Edyta liwiska, Louis van Amstel, and Mark Ballas, as well as the show’s current professionals.