This season (17) of Dancing With The Stars started with great momentum, with a great new cast of celebrity favorites to fall in love with throughout the season. Season 17 has also made a lot of headlines, especially with Glee star Amber Riley’s breakout performance of the Cha-Cha. Another performer on the show who is receiving a lot of attention is professional dancer Valentin (Val) Chmerkovskiy, not for his dancing, but for a comment he made to his new partner for this season, Elizabeth Berkley.

Elizabeth Berkley is best known for her role as Jessie Spano in the early 90’s sitcom Saved By The Bell. This was where Chmerkovskiy fumbled and confessed to his new partner (during one of their dance practices) that he preferred another character on the show, Kelly Kapowski. Chmerkovskiy (from Ukraine) stated that he watched Saved By The Bell while learning English and preferred Kapowski because of the origin of her name. The dialogue from was taking from their rehearsal for their first performance.

Elizabeth: You had learned English watching Saved By The Bell?
Val: Honestly, I was a fan of the other one.
Elizabeth: Are you serious? Oh, my God!
Val: I had a crush on the other one. What was her name?
Elizabeth: Kelly Kapowski
Val: She just had a Russian/Polish type of last name, so I was a little more attracted to that.
(Source: Video on ABC.com)

Later, during their discussion, Berkley forgives Chmerkovskiy, and hugs Berkley in thanks for her forgiveness; however, Berkley questions the hug, because this incident was something that she was instantly not going to let go of.

To see Val Chmerkovskiy and Elizabeth Berkley’s full contemporary performance to John Lennon’s “Imagine” during the opening show of Dancing With The Stars season 17, please view the YouTube video below.

[Image source: Instagram]