Warming up the ballroom! Dancing with the stars advantages Daniella Karagach and Pasha Pashkov had an instant dance chemistry that quickly translated into a real romance.
While the pair grew up dancing with separate partners, Pashkov needed a new teammate in early 2009.
“My previous partner went to [join] Dancing with the starsso I was looking for a new partner,” the Russian-born resident – who was 22 at the time – recalled” Dance Sports Info in June 2017. “My Standard coach told me to try dancing with Daniella. I wasn’t sure because it was six and a half years [age] difference between us.”
He continued at the time: “However, my coach said, ‘[That] doesn’t matter, she’s the right partner for you’, and that was it. So I called her up and asked her to dance with me.”
After a 20-minute tryout, the pair felt like this was a special collaboration. “We knew right away that we were good for each other,” Karagach, who was 15 at the time, gushed to the outlet in 2017.
As a dance duo, Karagach and Pashkov won several international competitions together before reaching the qualifying round of world of dance season 2. They both joined the cast of DWTS the following year, with Pashkov education Kate Flannery to dance and the New York native performing in the troupe. Karagach, for her part, received her first celebrity partner – Nelly — the next season.
In addition to working side-by-side on the ABC dance competition, the choreographers’ romance has continued to blossom.
“Happy 8th wedding anniversary @pashapashkov I didn’t think it was humanly possible to love someone so hard,” the season 30 mirror ball champion gushed via Instagram in July 2022. “Thank you for making me the happiest woman in the world. I FLY.”
The founders of the Wedding Dance School returned for DWTS season 31, in collaboration with Teresa Giudicea and Joseph Baenac, respectively. Pashkov and Giudice were eliminated in second place in September 2022.
“I wanted to win the mirror ball because [Pasha’s] wife won it last season so I wanted him to have the second trophy in the house so they would have two,’ Real Housewives of New Jersey alum told Us Weekly after her elimination, referring to Karagach’s victory with Iman Shumpert. “But there are a lot of great dancers on the show. When I saw my match I thought ‘I’m definitely not going to win it’, but I tried.”
Scroll below for Karagach and Pashkov’s full relationship timeline: