Karina Smirnoff
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
January 2, 1978
Karina Smirnoff | |
|---|---|
Карина Смирнофф | |
 Smirnoff in 2008 | |
| Born | Karina Smyrnova January 2, 1978 |
| Alma mater | Fordham University |
| Occupation | Dancer |
| Years active | 2004-present |
| Partner | Justinas Duknauskas |
| Children | 1 |
Karina Smirnoff[a] (born Karina Smyrnova[b], January 2, 1978)[1][2] is a professional ballroom dancer.[3] She is known as a professional dancer on Dancing with the Stars, where she won the thirteenth season with army veteran and soap opera star J. R. Martinez. She has also won two runner-up titles, a semifinal title, and several quarterfinal titles.
She is a five-time U.S. National Champion, World Trophy Champion, and Asian Open Champion. She has won the title at the UK Open, is a three-time champion at the US Open, two-time champion at the Asian Open, five-time champion at the Dutch Open, and five-time US National Professional Champion. She has taken second at the British Open Blackpool Dance Festival,[4] and the first woman to reach the British Professional Final with three different partners, and surpassed her own distinction by being the only woman to have made the final with four different partners between 1999 - 2006.[5]
Education
Karina Smirnoff was born in Kharkiv,[1] Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union,[2][4] and is of half-Greek and half-Russian Jewish descent.[6][3] At 11, she began competing in ballroom dancing.[7] She chose to pursue ballroom dancing. In 1993, Smirnoff immigrated to the United States.[2][8]
Smirnoff attended multiple schools, including Nerinx Hall High School in St. Louis and Christopher Columbus High School in The Bronx. She finally graduated from the Bronx High School of Science. Smirnoff graduated from New York City's Fordham University with a double major in economics and information system programming.[4]
Career
Early in Smirnoff's dancing career, she and Roman Nabatov competed as an amateur couple for USA. They ended their dance partnership in January 1997.[9] Smirnoff soon after started dancing with Paul Killick in October 1998 as a professional couple for England; this partnership ended in July 1999. Immediately, Louis Van Amstel and Karina Smirnoff, in July 1999, entered a professional dance partnership, representing the U.S.A; the partnership ended in December 2000.[10] From January 2001 to September 2005, Smirnoff was in a dance partnership with Slavik Kryklyvyy and they represented the U.S.A; this partnership thus far is her most successful one. Kryklyvyy and Smirnoff earned numerous top titles and high ratings together.[11]
Smirnoff appeared in the 2004 film Shall We Dance? as a dance instructor and was Stanley Tucci's dance partner.[12] She also released a fitness DVD, Shape Up With Karina Smirnoff.[13]
Her last professional partner recorded in competitions was Dmitri Timokhin representing Russia in October 2005. They won first place at the 2006 Grand-Prix Dynamo in Moscow.[14] They finished dancing together in June 2006.[15] Smirnoff was the project manager/director of a dancing event entitled "Day & Night", held on November 18, 2006 at the Hollywood & Highlands Grand Ballroom.[16] She guest starred as Madame Escajeda in an episode of Hannah Montana.[17] She is featured in a nude pictorial in the May 2011 American issue of Playboy magazine.[18]
In November 2016, it was announced that Smirnoff would be joining the cast of E! reality series Famously Single for its second season.[19]
Dancing with the Stars
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Personal life
Smirnoff grew up as an only child. Her parents own a liquor store in Staten Island. She has an American Staffordshire Terrier dog named Randy.[23]
She was engaged to fellow DWTS pro and Ukrainian Maksim Chmerkovskiy for nine months in 2009.[24]
In October 2009, Smirnoff began dating Major League Baseball pitcher Brad Penny. They became engaged in October 2010,[25] but ended the engagement in December 2011.[26]
Smirnoff became engaged to entrepreneur Jason Adelman in January 2015.[27] On March 11, 2015, both individuals announced that they had split and their engagement was off.[28][29]
In the summer of 2015 she was featured with her cast mates on Celebrity Family Feud. On the stage she danced a salsa number with host Steve Harvey. Her fellow dancers gave them a perfect "10."
In April 2020, Smirnoff gave birth to her first child, Theo Gabriel,[30] with boyfriend Justinas Duknauskas.[31]
