Karina Smirnoff
Karina Smirnoff (Ukrainian: Каріна Смірнова; born January 2, 1978)[1] is a Soviet-born American[2] professional ballroom dancer of Ukrainian origins.[3] She is known as a professional dancer on Dancing with the Stars, where she won the thirteenth season with army veteran and soap opera star J. R. Martinez. She has also won two runner-up titles, a semifinal title, and several quarterfinal titles.
Karina Smirnoff
Dancer
Justinas Duknauskas
1
She is a five-time U.S. National Champion, World Trophy Champion, and Asian Open Champion. She has won the title at the UK Open, is a three-time champion at the US Open, two-time champion at the Asian Open, five-time champion at the Dutch Open, and five-time US National Professional Champion. She has taken second at the British Open Blackpool Dance Festival,[4] and the first woman to reach the British Professional Final with three different partners, and surpassed her own distinction by being the only woman to have made the final with four different partners between 1999 - 2006.[5]
Personal life[edit]
Smirnoff grew up as an only child. Her parents own a liquor store in Staten Island. She has an American Staffordshire Terrier dog named Randy.[23]
She was engaged to fellow DWTS pro and Ukrainian Maksim Chmerkovskiy for nine months in 2009.[24]
In October 2009, Smirnoff began dating Major League Baseball pitcher Brad Penny. They became engaged in October 2010,[25] but ended the engagement in December 2011.[26]
Smirnoff became engaged to entrepreneur Jason Adelman in January 2015.[27] On March 11, 2015, both individuals announced that they had split and their engagement was off.[28][29]
In the summer of 2015 she was featured with her cast mates on Celebrity Family Feud. On the stage she danced a salsa number with host Steve Harvey. Her fellow dancers gave them a perfect "10."
In April 2020, Smirnoff gave birth to her first child, Theo Gabriel, [30][31] with boyfriend Justinas Duknauskas.[32]