Strictly judge Shirley Ballas’ son reportedly feuded with Witney
Alexa and Carlos PenaVega said Mark Ballas and Witney Carson refused to share a room while they competed on Dancing With The Stars. The former contestants…
Former Dancing With The Stars contestants Alexa and Carlos PenaVega say a reported rift between their professional dance partners disrupted the rehearsals they expected to share. Strictly judge Shirley Ballas’ son, Mark Ballas, and Witney Carson refused to be in the same room, Alexa said on the podcast she hosts with her husband.
The pair competed against each other on the show in 2015, becoming what the Mirror described as its first and only married couple to do so. Their account offers a glimpse of how tension between professional partners affected the contestants working with them.
“At the time, Witney and Mark were not getting along at all. They refused to be in the same room together,” Alexa said on LexLos.
She said she and Carlos had expected to rehearse together as much as possible. Instead, they had to work separately and adapt around what was happening between the dancers.
“The whole point of doing the show was, ‘We’re going to go in, and we’re going to do this together as much as possible.’ And the second we go in, boom, Mark and Witney refused to be in a room together,” she said.
“We thought we were going to be rehearsing in the same room, and now we have to be so separate. We have to dance around whatever’s going on with them.”
The account comes from Alexa and Carlos, who were contestants on the program and described what they experienced backstage. The Mirror reported that it had contacted Dancing With The Stars, Mark and Witney for comment; its report did not include a response from them.
Carlos spoke positively about Mark’s approach to choreography, describing him as creative and willing to pursue ideas that demanded substantial work. Carlos said he had a strong work ethic with Witney, who, he added, put up with the difficulty while they also had fun.
Alexa also contrasted her own learning process with Carlos’s. She said he picked up choreography quickly, while she sometimes forgot steps after first learning them.
That difference shaped their experience of rehearsals, but the reported separation between their dance partners made the arrangement harder still. Alexa said the couple had to adjust to working apart from the shared practice they had anticipated.
Mark is currently partnered with Maura Higgins on Dancing With The Stars, according to the Mirror. The pair performed an Ireland-inspired paso doble to “I’m Shipping Up to Boston” by Dropkick Murphys.
Mark spoke about his family connection to Ireland on Tuesday, saying he had learned that his great-grandfather’s side included Irish heritage and the surname Higgins. He also said he had visited Ireland many times and praised the experience of learning the dance’s steps from a six-time world champion.
“Learning to do the correct steps was so cool,” Ballas said.
Source: mirror.co.uk
