Artem Chigvintsev, a longtime pro on “Dancing With the Stars,” was arrested Thursday morning on accusations of corporal injury to spouse. Chigvintsev was booked in the Napa County jail an hour after his arrest with a $25,000 bail, according to intake documents.
The entertainer and his wife, Nikki Garcia, celebrated their second wedding anniversary on Aug. 27. Garcia has not been identified by authorities as the spouse in question and, according to TMZ, who first reported the news, the victim has asked the sheriff’s office for “total confidentiality.”
Representatives for Chigvintsev did not immediately respond to TheWrap’s request for comment.
On Tuesday, Garcia posted a video of clips from a trip to Paris with the pair’s son on Instagram. She quoted the song “Fools Rush In” and added, “This song is our love story. I’ll never forget where I was when I asked Jesus about Artem. Having a conversation with He & God. How my feelings felt too soon. It all felt too fast. And then this song came on. And that’s when I knew that I was falling in love with him and that it was all meant to be.”
Chigvintsev shared his own anniversary post on Instagram. He captioned a wedding photo with Garcia, “Happy anniversary my love , can’t see my life with out you. You are my everything.”
The pair met in 2017 when they were paired on “Dancing With the Stars.” At the time, Garcia was engaged to John Cena. She and Chigvintsev connected after that relationship ended and announced their engagement in November 2019. Their son Matteo was born in July 2020.
Garcia opened up about the couple’s plans to enter couple’s therapy in November 2020 as a guest on “The Tamron Hall Show.” She told Hall that her husband’s return to the dance show where they met was difficult following their son’s birth.
“I was so supportive and pushing him out the door to go do ‘Dancing,’ and then I realized once he left, I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, what did I do? Like I need him.’ And so it was really hard,” she revealed. “We’re going to start after the season and it’s mainly just to be amazing parents and knowing how to balance parent life out and also our own relationship. Because Artem and I don’t ever want to have a struggle.”
“We hear a lot of stories of where there’s sacrifice in their own relationship because it’s about the kids,” she added. “Artem and I, from the beginning, want to know: How do we balance this for Matteo and for our relationship?”
