Peta Murgatroyd is one of a handful of Dancing With the Stars pros to become a mother in recent years — and after welcoming her third child last year, she feels ready to return to the ballroom.
“Right now, I do feel like I have a bit of a weight lifted off my shoulders. I’ve gotten through that first, you know, newborn stage again. So I feel like I would be ready to go back,” Murgatroyd, 38, told Us Weekly exclusively while promoting her self-tanner line, Peta Jane Beauty. “I love the show. I love what it’s about. I love training people [and] teaching them how to dance. I love the performance aspect of it. So, yes, if they did come to me and want me back, I would say yes.”
Murgatroyd is married to fellow former DWTS pro Maksim Chmerkovskiy and the couple share three sons: Shai, 8, Rio, nearly 2, and Milan, 11 months. She admitted that she decides whether or not the show’s schedule works for their family on a season-by-season basis — especially if Chmerkovskiy, 45, expresses interest in a return, too.
“Of course it would be better if one person was around but we would probably have different schedules — I would maybe be a 9 to 1, he would be a 1 to 5. So we could kind of tag team it like that,” Murgatroyd explained, sharing that they have a full-time nanny who helps care for the children.
“I think it’s got to do with if I miss it or not, you know? If I look at it on the TV and I’m like, ‘Oh, I wish I was there,’” she said of her thought process. “And, to be honest, last season I didn’t miss it because I was so postpartum. I had two babies [back-to-back] — it felt like I had twins. I had Irish twins to deal with, and my 8-year-old. It was just very consuming [and] I couldn’t imagine myself in that [pro] role back then because you need to dedicate everything to that role in the three months that you’re on that screen.”
Murgatroyd further detailed the grueling balance of being a DWTS pro and a parent, mentioning fellow dancers and moms Witney Carson, Lindsay Arnold, Daniella Karagach and her sister-in-law, Jenna Johnson. (Johnson is married to Maksim’s brother and DWTS pro Val Chmerkovskiy.)
“I gotta tell you, it is extremely difficult,” Murgatroyd noted of tackling motherhood while competing on the show. “I wonder sometimes how I would do it because there’s three now and I already have my 8-year-old saying that he doesn’t have enough time with me because of the two babies, and that makes me feel a type of way.”
She continued: “When I go to work, I have to go to work and just only think of this. It’s very hard, obviously, because my phone’s bleeping if it’s the nanny, if it’s Shai wanting to talk to me or something like that. But I really have to dedicate that time for myself to be a part of that show again and, when that time is over, when those four or five hours of dancing or practice is over, I am back full-time mom. I’m coming home and I’m being with them. You know? There’s no like going out and hanging with friends and stuff like that. No, it’s full-time mom after that. I feel like any little snippet of time will be dedicated to them.”
Murgatroyd went on to say that “it is very difficult” to leave her children in the morning, especially when she competed on season 32 with Barry Williams.
“I did it with two [kids] last time I was on the show with Barry. And we were living in Malibu at that time and I had to drive an hour each way to get into work. And it was really difficult to leave the kids, just purely because I was leaving so early to get there. I had minimal time with them,” she shared with Us. “You really have to have amazing time management. I can’t say it’s easy. I can’t say it’s something that feels good, also, because it just doesn’t. I miss my kids when I’m on the show, too.”
Murgatroyd has appeared on 15 seasons of DWTS since 2011, winning twice with Donald Driver and Nyle DiMarco during seasons 14 and 22, respectively. As for whether another Mirrorball Trophy (now called the Len Goodman Mirrorball Trophy in memory of the late judge) is on her mind, Murgatroyd can’t deny the allure of the coveted statue.
“There’s always an itch to win,” she said. “I don’t think my life depends on it anymore. You know, when you’re younger and it’s like, ‘I have to win, I’m going to do everything.’ I go in feeling the same way but you kind of get the gist of who you’re given and how far you’re going to go very early on. So there’s only been a few people that surprised me, like Tommy Chong. We got to the semifinals. He was 76 at the time. Barry, again, I didn’t think we would go to the quarterfinals like we did. That was amazing.”
“But, I would love another Mirrorball. Who? Who wouldn’t?” she stated. “There’s been no girl that has won three times. It’s me twice, Cheryl [Burke]’s won twice. Julianne [Hough]’s won twice. [Kym Johnson won twice.] So, yeah, of course, that would be amazing.”
During a recent chat with Us Weekly, Maksim also confessed that he’s open to another shot at a win and is asked back “every year” because of his connection to Murgatroyd, brother Val, 39, and Johnson, 31. (He last appeared as a pro on season 25.)
“I think today I would come back,” he told Us of a potential return to the ballroom. “It doesn’t matter whether it’s to judge or to dance, I think it’s just fun to even be in this situation … There were moments in my journey with Dancing With the Stars that I’ve never thought that 20 years later I will be as part of it as I was.”
In addition to her work as a dancer, Murgatroyd is the founder of Peta Jane Beauty, an award-winning self-tanning brand available globally.
“When I was on Dancing With the Stars, we had been tanning for years. I had tried every tanner on the market. We would get tanned once a week, spray-tanned, and I always left feeling kind of, like, not that confident in it,” she explained. “I didn’t like it the next day. I felt like I always had to cover it up the next day and wear long sleeves if anything was patchy or going orange. And I was honestly just frustrated and just sick of it, and thought, ‘Why isn’t there something that is natural? Looks like you’ve been in the sun for two weeks?’ There was just nothing like that around. So I teamed up with an industry professional and we formulated over, gosh, like seven to eight years, to try and get the perfect formula that will never go orange, it’ll dry super quick and it doesn’t smell bad. So we’ve finally done it.”
