Lea Thompson admitted she was surprised when she heard about her former Dancing with the Stars partner Artem Chigvintsev’s arrest and recalled the “crazy thing” he told her during a difficult working relationship.
The Back to the Future actress competed in Season 19, and she and dance pro Chigvintsev finished sixth after being eliminated in the quarterfinals.
Monsters and Critics reported that Chigvintsev’s wife, Nikki Bella, was considering divorce after his arrest for alleged domestic violence.
Thompson recently appeared on former professional dancer Cheryl Burke’s Sex, Lies, and Spraytans podcast and spoke about her experience with him while on the show.
She discussed Chgvintsev’s “intense” demeanor and surprising sexist comments.
In addition, Thompson compared her time on Dancing with the Stars to The Hunger Games.
Lea Thompson recalls the ‘crazy thing’ Chigvintsev told her during DWTS
While on Burke’s podcast, Thompson said it was a “sensitive” topic to discuss, and she hadn’t “delved into what happened” with her former DWTS partner’s arrest.
However, she spoke about her partner being challenging to work with when she competed on the ABC dance competition show.
“It was hard working with him because it was his first year, and it was a big deal to him, and he was so intense that made me really nervous,” she admitted, adding, “like it made me crazy after a while.”
She said he would get “so mad” if she asked to try something else with a dance routine because “he was so implacable.”
Thompson also said she dealt with issues regarding her concept of being an older contestant at 53 and whether certain dance moves she was doing were “appropriate.”
She said she did DWTS to keep pushing herself as an artist, but it was still “terrifying” for her during the experience.
Speaking about Chigvintsev’s recent headlines, she admitted she was “surprised” to hear about that.
“I don’t know what happened,” she said about her former partner’s arrest, adding, “The one really crazy thing he said to me, that made me think about it, was I remember him telling me that men are much better than women. And I said, why? And he said, ‘Because they’re stronger,'” Thompson recalled.
“I was like, but they don’t have babies. I’ve had a baby,” she said that she told Chigvintsev as a quick comeback to his remark.
Thompson compared DWTS to Hunger Games
According to Thomspon, her DWTS experience had a “Hunger Games” aspect to it, as she claimed “they did some really crappy things” to her on the show.
“Like one time, we were just about to shoot, and Artem was wearing a powder blue coat. We’d already preshot something, but right before we went on, they said, ‘Artem has to take off his coat.’ And I had to do one of those big lifts that that you worm down their body in your with all those crystals on, and I couldn’t slide down his body,” Thompson said.
Like DWTS Season 33 contestant Chandler Kinney, Thompson was one of the rare celebs with dance experience before appearing on the show. She studied ballet at a young age and danced professionally by 14.
However, she left ballet when she was 20 because American Ballet Theatre’s Studio Company artistic director Mikhail Baryshnikov told her she was “too chunky.”
That led Thompson to pursue a career in acting, which paid off nicely. Within five years, she was part of the cast of the classic sci-fi film Back to the Future, starring Michael J. Fox, which spawned two sequels and helped continue her acting career.
Dancing with the Stars Season 33 premieres Tuesday, September 17 at 8/7c on ABC and Disney+.