Karina Smirnoff On Image Overcoming Actual Dancing Ability, Her Relationships Effecting Dancing With The Stars, and More

TampaBay.com has a new interview up with Karina Smirnoff. They ask her if she was upset about how harsh the judges were on her and Ralph this past season. Karina dishes about ‘the way image can overcome actual dancing ability’. Below is her reply.

“It was a little weird that people were like, ‘Oh you moved your little pinky, we love it, you get a (score of) 10!’ ” she said of Alley, who racked up impressive scores despite falling during one routine and losing her shoe during another.

“Once that happened, (the judges) were like, ‘You picked yourself up, you did such an amazing job.’ … We fell, had an injury and ‘Oh, we’ll take points away,’ ” said Smirnoff. ”Kirstie represents the majority of the demographic that watches the show … and the message she had — that you can lose weight and get into the shape you want through dance — was very strong.”

They also interviewed Karina on her upcoming nuptials and if she thinks getting married will make a success on the show tougher. I don’t think that’s true, do you? They also ask her about her and Maks’ relationship and if it helped them on the show. Wow, what questions! Unfortunately and right or wrong, I think Karina is right how anything that hit’s newsstands makes people watch the show versus dancing. It’s kind of sad when you think about it.

You and Penny caused worldwide headlines when you announced a January wedding date.
To me, that’s always, like, bizarre. Nobody cares that I’m still doing a lot for my charity with kids in LA. But when we got engaged, that was front page news everywhere.

Do you worry getting married will make success on the show tougher because fans want to believe you might hook up with your partner?
Dancing to me is pretty much acting with your body without using words. If you’re dancing together you do want to portray that you have chemistry, that you have some sort of connection, that you have this passion for each other. Otherwise, you are a horrible dancer.

But you once were engaged to fellow Dancing star Maksim Chmerkovskiy. Didn’t it help you on the show for people to know you were an item?
The show is a popularity, personality and a danceability competition. All three matter. If you’re popular and you’re a hot topic in the press, people will tune to see what everybody’s talking about. And possibly vote to see if there’s more gossip or more news going to come out in certain situations. But you want people to like you and you want people to see you the way you really are.

Karina will be judging the Millennium Dancesport Championships next week where more than 1,700 dancers are expected to compete. For dates, time, and ticket information, go HERE.

Heidi’s Note: Yep, Karina pretty much nails it, IMO. Kirstie got away with lots of stuff that Ralph didn’t. Crack is wack.