After a highly emotional week and history-making controversy behind the scenes at Dancing with the Stars, viewers tuned in to Dedication Night in droves and were treated to beautiful dances and touching tributes on Tuesday, October 20.
What fans didn’t see on TV, though, was a lengthy post-show hug between judge Carrie Ann Inaba and pro dancer Jenna Johnson, whose tense exchange the week prior about whether Johnson’s dance with Harry Shum Jr. had an illegal “lift,” turned into quite a mess for the show.
When Johnson’s husband, fellow pro Val Chmerkovskiy, defended his wife online with a comment he later deleted and apologized for, producers deemed the post so “inappropriate” that he was suspended from the show for the week.
Several audience members captured Inaba and Johnson’s embrace on their cell phones and posted the footage on social media. Fans were quick to debate the authenticity of the hug. Some insisted it was “staged” or a “PR stunt” while others expressed relief that the hug seemed “healing” and “compassionate.”
So, who’s right? Body language expert Inbaal Honigman was asked by Casino.org to analyze Johnson and Inaba’s embrace frame by frame, and her verdict was that the hug and the feeling behind it were real, explaining, “There are a few nonverbal cues which suggest that Jenna and Carrie Ann’s hug is warm and genuine, not just a fake show of unity for the cameras.”
Honigman said Johnson and Inaba’s hands “tell a whole story,” explaining, “Both ladies place their hands, open and curved, on each other’s backs. If they didn’t want the hug to be warm and genuine, their hands would have been flat, tense and cold. Open hands are a mark of sharing and vulnerability and the fact that the hands are lightly curved reveals that they’re not tense.”
“Their muscles rest in a natural curve, no tension, showing that this hug is totally natural and spontaneous,” she added. “Placing their hands on each other’s backs literally says ‘I’ve got your back.’ It is a mark of support and trust.”
Honigman also said that it appears there are “no hard feelings” between the two women, noting, “People who dislike each other would generally avoid any contact, especially around bare skin, and would certainly won’t embrace in such a full and warm way.”
It remains to be seen whether Inaba and Chmerkovskiy will hug it out, but he will be back in the ballroom to dance with his season 35 partner, actress Jenna Dewan, for the show’s Horror Night on October 27 at 8 p.m. ET/PT on ABC and Disney+.