Maura Higgins has said she will refuse to be partnered with Dancing With the Stars professional Gleb Savchenko on her upcoming stint on the US celebrity dance competition next month, citing the way he talks about women.
"I'd be happy with anyone but Gleb," Higgins, 35, told E! News. "That's only because I'm loyal and I'm friends with Brooks [Nader]."
"I don't really like the way he speaks about women," she added. "I don't really want to spend all my time with someone like that. I'm like, no thank you."
Higgins, who found fame on Love Island UK, said she is standing by her best friend Brooks Nader, 29, a former Dancing With the Stars contestant who dated Savchenko, 42, after they were partnered together on the show in 2024. The relationship ended in what has been described as a messy split.
Savchenko responded when the Daily Mail asked him to comment. "Until I was asked to comment on this story, I'd genuinely never heard of this girl, Maura, so I'm certainly not going to lose any sleep over the opinions of someone I've never met," he said. "It's odd to publicly attack someone you've never even met, but if that's how she wants to make headlines before the show starts, that's her choice. I'll stay focused and leave the unnecessary drama to everyone else."
Hoping for a pairing with Valentin Chmerkovskiy
Higgins is instead hoping to be partnered with fellow professional dancer Valentin Chmerkovskiy, teasing the possibility in a video of the two of them dancing together.
Savchenko's claims about ex Brooks Nader
Higgins's comments come after Savchenko branded Nader "the worst sex" he has ever had. "When I dated her, it was pretty bad. Probably the worst sex of my life," the ballroom dancer claimed to Dakota Mortensen, the ex of reality television star Taylor Frankie Paul.
Savchenko also claimed that Nader, who was born in Louisiana, often took things to a rough level he was not comfortable with. "She was so f***ed up," the Moscow-born dancer and choreographer said. "She wanted to make out with me, and I was like, 'That's not my vibe.'"
He further alleged that Nader, who has also been linked to actor Taron Egerton, "choked me, pushed me against the wall, chipped my tooth."
An on-off romance that began on the dance floor
Nader and Savchenko began seeing one another in the fall of 2024 while they were partners on Dancing With the Stars, with a romance quickly becoming apparent between them. Nader suggested in an October 2024 TikTok clip that the pair had parted ways.
"Gleb got way too comfortable, especially in the amount of time he was spending at Brooks' home, to a point it had begun to concern Brooks' people and family close to her," an insider told US Weekly of the split at the time.
The pair appeared to be back on track the following month, when Nader welcomed Savchenko to her family's Thanksgiving dinner. They split again in April, with Savchenko telling Page Six he had been caught off guard.
"I was surprised to learn through article(s) published today.. that Brooks has ended our relationship," he told the outlet at the time.
The Daily Mail has reached out to representatives for both Nader and Savchenko for further comment and has yet to hear back.
