Val Chmerkovskiy, Maks Chmerkovskiy and Peta Murgatroyd may be sitting out this season of Dancing with the Stars as they had across the country on their Maks & Val & Peta: Confidential dance tour, but they’ll all be cheering on the cast from afar. And they’ll be rooting hard for one of their fellow pros in particular: Jenna Johnson.
Val, who is dating Johnson, told PEOPLE during a Hilton Honors member experience dance class that he’s excited to see Johnson take the floor this season with Olympic figure skater Adam Rippon
“My girlfriend’s gonna kill it,” Val said of Johnson, to whom he’s been linked for over two years. “I’m very excited to see her shine and finally get her shot. They definitely have a lot of work in front of them, but she has a shot.”
Want to keep up on the latest from PEOPLE? Sign
up for our daily newsletter to get our best stories of the day delivered straight to your inbox.
And he’s not the only member of the family who is rooting for Johnson and Rippon on the show’s first-ever all-athletes season of the show. Brother Maks and sister-in-law Murgatroyd are also hoping to see the pair take home the Mirrorball.
“I think she has a great chance of winning,” Maks said. “Now it’s only a matter of doing what Jenna Johnson is capable of doing and has been doing behind the scenes. She has been creative and incredible with her work ethic. People are going to get to see it now, because she has the partner that will allow her to put that up on a bigger platform. I don’t think she was given that chance in her first time as a pro. I’m very happy for her now.”
Murgatroyd agrees. “We’re definitely rooting for everyone, especially Jenna,” she tells PEOPLE. “I think she should definitely be one of the ones in the end.”
She’ll also be rooting for fellow Aussie Sharness Burgess: “She’s my girl.”
The trio are currently on a 50-city tour, where they’re showing off their moves to audiences around the country. The demands of the tour schedule not only kept them from participating in this season, but will also prevent them from being able to go back and watch any of the episodes live. The demands, however, are worth it, Val says. This is their second tour, but the first with the addition of Murgatroyd — last year they performed their Maks & Val: Our Way tour across the country.
“It was a huge risk to take because we have always been under, at least in terms of the public eye, the Dancing with the Stars umbrella,” says Val, who will be “definitely” returning to DWTS post-tour. “For us to kind of venture out and tell a different story was a huge risk, but it paid off ten-fold. It just feels so special sharing things that you genuinely care about which is your own personal experiences.”
“Doing what you love and doing it with the people you love is the ultimate dream,” he says. “So we’re like, let’s do it again.”