Carlos PenaVega's Tense Backstage Clash with Mark Ballas' Mom Revealed
Carlos PenaVega had an admittedly heated reaction to wife Alexa PenaVega’s Dancing With the Stars elimination.
“The best moment is, after I get eliminated, Carlos and Shirley Ballas, [who] is Mark [Ballas]’s mother, … get into a fight backstage,” Alexa, 38, recalled on the Thursday, October 22, episode of the couple’s “LexLos” podcast, acknowledging Shirley, 66, is a “legend” in the ballroom community. “She goes, ‘Are you happy? Semifinals?’ And Carlos was like, ‘No, I’m not happy, my wife just got eliminated!’”
Carlos, 37, stressed that he is grateful the pair’s brief verbal altercation was not captured on film.
“She was sweet, but it was actually bad timing,” Carlos admitted. “She wasn’t trying to be mean, it was just bad timing.”
Shirley, the head judge on the U.K.’s Strictly Come Dancing, has not publicly addressed the accusations. Us reached out for comment.
Carlos and Alexa competed against each other on DWTS season 21 in 2015 with respective pro partners Witney Carson and Mark, 40. The Spy Kids star and Mark finished in sixth place, while Carlos and Carson, 33, made it all the way to the finale but came up short behind winners Derek Hough and Bindi Irwin.
Reflecting on her departure from the competition, Alexa claimed that Mark had an inkling their time in the ballroom would be cut short before it was officially announced.
“[Mark] knew we were getting eliminated, however, that day Tamar [Braxton] gets deathly ill. We end up finding out it’s, like, deathly ill and she should have remained in the hospital,” Alexa alleged, claiming Mark was already aware they were booked on The View to discuss their elimination. “The producers, from what Tamar said, went to the hospital and were like, ‘You need to do it.’ … Mark was like, ‘I believe we would have still been in if Tamar had stayed at the hospital.”
Braxton, 49, and pro partner Val Chmerkovskiy ended up withdrawing from the show “the next day” because of the singer’s illness.
“Mark was really hoping that was the moment of, ‘If she stays in the hospital, we won’t go home tonight and get one more week to show what we can do,’” Alexa recalled. “[Carlos and I, our two dance partnerships] would have still been in the bottom, but it’s just such a different story.”
Alexa and Carlos were the first married celebrities to compete against each other on DWTS, during a time they claim had “a lot of drama behind the scenes.”
“At the time, Witney and Mark were not getting along at all,” Alexa alleged on Thursday. “They refused to be in the same room together. It was really hard because we’re married and the whole point of doing the show was, ‘We’re gonna do this together as much as possible. The second we go in, boom, ‘Mark and Witney refuse to be in a room together.’”
Mark and Carson have not publicly addressed the reported feud. Us reached out for comment.
