Maksim Chmerkovskiy is leaving the ballroom.
The hot-tempered hoofer says he will not return to “Dancing With the Stars” after his current contract expires at the end of next year
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Quay
What else do I have to do there after 15 seasons?” he tells The Post. “It makes total sense. The audience can’t expect for me to want to stick around, and the producers can’t expect for me to want to stick around.”
Maks — who re-teams with Kirstie Alley for the show’s all-star season on Monday — says he plans to pursue acting and possibly a reality show with his brother, Val.
He has already secured the lead in a major studio movie, which begins filming in January.
Over breakfast at Fratelli Cafe in West Hollywood, the bearded bad boy admitted many of the “Dancing” pros are growing frustrated in the shadows of their celebrity partners.
“Essentially, 80% of our job is to give somebody another push in their career,” he says. “Or we make them into likable characters. But at the end of the day, they go off and they better themselves.
“I loved doing it. But to be honest with you, at 32, I am at what-about-me time.’”
“I am not thinking that with me leaving, the show will go off the air or anything,” he says. “Like my dad said, ‘There are no irreplacable people.’ I wish them the next 50 years of success. But I have to do something else. I need to move on for me.“
Good for him!
