Maksim Chmerkovskiy To Return To Dancing With The Stars As Guest Judge

Ukrainian Latin Ballroom dance champion Maksim Chmerkovskiy is to return to Dancing With the Stars as a guest judge on the panel next Monday.

According to ABC, the show's former dance professional will be joining fellow judges Bruno Tonioli, Len Goodman and Carrie Ann Inaba during Trio-Challenge week at next week's semi final.

 Maksim Chmerkovskiy returns to DWTS as guest judge (Wenn)

The dance champion has been absent from the last two series of the reality show as a professional dancer, due to him wanting to pursue different opportunities such as running several dance studios and taking part in Broadway's Forever Tango over the summer.

Amber Riley, Bill Engvall, Corbin Bleu, Jack Osbourne and Leah Remini have all made it to the DWTS semi finals.

Maksim's brother Val Chmerkovskiy and his partner Elizabeth Berkley were eliminated earlier this week. Speaking about the exit, former Saved by the Bell star Elizabeth Berkley said she felt "sucker punched" when the show's host made the announcement that she had to leave the show.

Asked about how she was feeling, Elizabeth who was axed from the show despite impressing the judges, told Us Weekly:

"[I'm] sad! I'm not going to lie. It's like that saying, don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened.

"I'm going to live with that. I felt a little sucker-punch[ed] because I was excited about next week, and I just feel like we got cut short a little bit . . . Not that I felt entitled by any means, but I just felt excited and grateful."

Having got a tad emotional, Elizabeth added: "The gift of the love affair I have with dance has returned. This isn't sad, it's just a very deep thing [Val] helped me reconnect to and I'm forever grateful. It's like a full circle love affair."

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