Artem Chigvintsev Defends Kaitlyn Bristowe After Harsh ‘DWTS’ Criticism: She Didn’t ‘Give Up’
Artem Chigvintsev had something to say about Carrie Ann Inaba’s critiques of Kaitlyn Bristowe’s latest dance. In a new interview, he defends Kaitlyn and didn’t think Carrie Ann’s words were ‘constructive criticism.’
Kaitlyn Bristowe, 35, and Artem Chigvintsev, 38, hit the ballroom for Villains Night on Dancing With the Stars with a fierce paso doble. However, Carrie Ann Inaba, 52, was not a fan of Kaitlyn’s performance once again and said she felt at times that Kaitlyn just gave up and that it was “another not great performance.” After the show, Artem and Kaitlyn spoke to reporters, including HollywoodLife, about the latest critique.
“First of all, I don’t know how to take critiques that’s been thrown at us because those critiques were not necessarily, in my opinion, constructive criticism,” Artem said. “In the sense of watching [her] ‘giving up,’ you can’t justify that as, look, your feet were not pointed, your arm was not there, you missed the step or some of your steps, or you definitely messed up the music or the count… that’s a constructive criticism. And that’s something you can go to the studio and work on. But when you throw things like ‘I just didn’t feel it’ [or] ‘I don’t think it was the best,’ to me, that’s an opinion. But I can’t work on that when I’m going to her. I can’t take that criticism, and I can’t go and apply it for the next week. Not giving up? I think that’s every single week’s model — not giving up. You’re going out to the preform with the thought of you’re actually not gonna give up. You’re doing the dance for me in 40 seconds knowing that’s your dance. Giving up means sitting down and being like, I’m sorry, I just can’t do it myself. That is, to me, giving up.”
Kaitlyn added that it “really hurt my feelings” with Carrie Ann said that it looked like Kaitlyn was giving up during the performance. “It was tough to hear. Because last week, she had tough feedback, but I took it with a grain of salt,” Kaitlyn continued. “And I said, you know what, I respect that if that’s what you saw. This week, when she said that I looked like I gave up or I lost my spirit, I was like, oh, that hurt my feelings. Because I felt like I was trying so hard the whole time. So that was tough to hear for sure.”
Artem noted that he did appreciate that judge Derek Hough, 35, brought up how much content Artem and Kaitlyn have in each of their dances. That’s because Artem is determined to teach his partner the actual dance. Artem talked about the thought of reevaluating his strategy with Kaitlyn and admitted that he would feel “completely unjustified” if they had done a more “gimmicky” dance with less paso doble steps.
“Maybe something I should be taking in then [and] maybe we should do next week is a more gimmicky dance. Where it’s a lot more gimmicks involved, and not necessarily dancing,” Artem said, before continuing: “She’s here to learn how to dance. She’s here to learn a dance that represents that specific style, or this specific step within this specific style. I did not know that this was Villains Night, and we want to see just the character side of it. We still want to recognize what this dance is. Because I’ll be frank with you, that’s what I was thinking of doing in this particular dance was a paso. I’m a big fan of the paso doble, and I would feel completely unjustified if I would not have done the paso doble steps. I feel like that’s what she did from the very first minute the song hit to the very last minute of the song… If it needs to be less content and more gimmicky, great. It’s easier to do, so maybe we just strip down the choreo and make it easier. I’ll do that.” Dancing With the Stars season 29 airs Mondays at 8 p.m. on ABC.