Corey Feldman said ABC’s hit dance competition series “Dancing With the Stars” was “toxic” when the cameras went down.
“There was a lot of stupidity in the mudslinging that went on behind the scenes,” Feldman said in a preview of his conversation with the Alan Gurvey on his weekly radio show “Gurvey’s Law,” which was obtained by Daily Mail.
“Actually there, everything was great,” Feldman explained of this time dancing on program. “On the set everybody gets along.”
However, Feldman, who teamed up with professional dancer Jenna Johnson and was eliminated in week two of the competition, noted that it was a different experience behind the scenes.
Representatives for the show did not immediately respond to TheWrap’s request for comment.
“The behind-the-scenes drama and BS that people throw around that show, I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s the worst, like, most toxic,” Feldman said, adding that he’d start to read reports in the media about people’s alleged poor experiences on the show. At one point, Feldman was the topic at hand after Johnson’s brother-in-law, Maksim Chmerkovskiy, shared in September that Johnson had a “really difficult” time with the “Goonies” star.
“You start reading these things in the paper, like, ‘This person’s mad at this person,’” Feldman explained. “These people aren’t talking to each other.’ Or, ‘Are people working hard enough?’ ‘Corey Feldman destroyed the show. He destroyed the whole show because he was such an egomaniac it’s so difficult to work with.’”
When he asked Johnson about Chmerkovskiy’s comments, Feldman said she brushed them off as Chmerkovskiy just wanting “attention.”
After Chmerkovskiy’s interview, on Sept. 24, Johnson penned a heartfelt message to Feldman, saying she was “grateful for the incredible weeks” they shared, despite their time together being cut short.
“Thank you for the giggles everyday in rehearsal, thank you for the hard work, and thank you for sharing your life lessons and memories with me! I’ll cherish our friendship forever. Never stop dancing,” Johnson wrote in an Instagram post with a lineup of photos of the two over the course of their journey in the competition.
Underneath her post, Feldman apologized for the false narrative about their relationship he feels the media is spinning.
“Thank U Jenna! U were an absolute joy to work with. Im so sorry for any negativity the media is using to give the false narrative that our time together was anything less than enjoyable,” Feldman wrote at the time. “And U know as well as i do that i was there 7 days a week for the past 3 weeks, doing everything in my power to give U my best, even if the judges couldnt see it. God Bless your family. Keep dancing the dream.”
