Maksim Chmerkovskiy and Peta Murgatroyd may have tied the knot on Saturday, but it was not love at first sight for the Dancing with the Stars pros.
“I thought he was arrogant,” Murgatroyd told PEOPLE in a 2015 interview of meeting her future fiancé in 2009 when they were both cast in the Broadway production of Burn the Floor.
“Okay, that’s a defense mechanism.
I think she was in love with me at first sight and just doesn’t want to admit it,” Chmerkovskiy retorted with a smile to Murgatroyd. “No, I walked in the way I walk in and … it’s just a lot of presence.”“I learned to like him because I found out he wasn’t that arrogant,” admitted Murgatroyd. “He was really generous to the entire cast, and our friendship grew and grew.”
But it would take years for that friendship to blossom into something more. And once it did, the professional dancers would have to break up before Chmerkovskiy felt he was “in a position” where he was ready to propose.
“I think it’s awesome we have a massive history,” said Chmerkovskiy, 37. “It’ll make a great story to tell our kids one day.”
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Murgatroyd, 30, said “there was always an attraction” between the two dancers, but because he was engaged to his fellow DWTS pro dancer Karina Smirnoff and she was dating her future DWTS costar Damian Whitewood at the time, “there was nothing ever done about it.”
Their friendship began to blossom. And by 2012, during Murgatroyd’s second season on the hit ABC reality dance competition, they were both single and going on “friendship dates” with each other, said the newly minted Mrs. Chmerkovskiy.
Things were going strong until, as Murgatroyd put it, “out of nowhere,” Chmerkovskiy called it quits after less than a year of dating.
“My heart was broken,” said Murgatroyd. “But when we were driving to the airport after the breakup talk, he literally asked me why I was taking all my bags and clothes back. I was like, ‘We just broke up. Why would I leave anything behind?’ That’s when I knew it wasn’t really over for forever.”
And she was right.
“I realized right away that I’d made a mistake,” said Chmerkovskiy. “So…
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