Peta Murgatroyd Faces Mom-Shaming for Bringing Nanny to DWTS
Peta Murgatroyd is sharing her experiences regarding the wave of mom-shaming remarks she faced for joining Dancing With the Stars merely months after the birth of her first child.
“I would bring Shai to set with me on Dancing With the Stars all the time, and the nanny would accompany us because I couldn’t leave him alone in the trailer,” Murgatroyd, 39, mentioned on the Monday, December 15, episode of her “Penthouse With Peta” podcast, referring to her now-8-year-old son. “People would ask, ‘Why have a nanny? Is that necessary? Who’s taking care of the baby? You’re spending too much time away from him.’”
Murgatroyd welcomed her and husband Maksim Chmerkovskiy’s first child, son Shai, in 2017. (The couple later expanded their family with sons Rio and Milan in 2023 and 2024, respectively.)
“It was only about four or five hours a day spent on dancing. It wasn’t that extreme,” Murgatroyd recalled. “Then, I would return to breast-feed. [The nanny] would bring him in so I could support him. The producers would step out, and I would breast-feed before they came back in.”
She went on to say, “It’s always worked out for us, but I definitely faced criticism for it. Now, I simply don’t care. I appreciate her; she’s the best.”
Murgatroyd made her return to DWTS for season 24 just three months after giving birth, during which she paired with former Bachelor Nick Viall. She and Chmerkovskiy, now 45, also took Shai along for the show’s live tour the following year.
“One of our best experiences was when Shai was a year and 10 months old during the tour. He was with us on the bus for 65 cities,” Chmerkovskiy shared. “We had a crib on the bus; it remains one of the most magical experiences to this day.”
Chmerkovskiy did admit to feeling “super stressed” having Shai and their nanny traveling with them.
“It was winter in Boston, and I opened the door to find him naked on the shower floor. I thought, ‘We’re going to hurt this baby,’” Chmerkovskiy joked. “Now it’s like, ‘Please, just get yourself on the bus.’”
Guests on Murgatroyd and Chmerkovskiy’s podcast, Blake Horstmann and Giannina Gibelli, shared that they also encountered similar levels of mom-shaming due to hiring a nanny for their son Heath.
“Many of the comments I receive … say things like, ‘I wish I could do that, but I can’t,’” Gibelli, 32, expressed. “It hurts, and I understand it – I trigger something for them. It’s like, ‘Okay, unleash your feelings, but don’t blame me.’”
The Love Is Blind alum welcomed her first child in 2024, and soon after, she recruited a distant family member as Heath’s nanny.
“She lives with us. She’s actually a family member twice removed,” Gibelli detailed. “She’s like my adopted sister, auntie, cousin, and it feels like she was always meant to be part of our lives. It’s wild because I had a baby and adopted a 36-year-old Colombian woman in the same year, but it’s my family, and it’s honestly the best thing ever.”
