Daniella Karagach will always have the perfect partner in husband Pasha Pashkov.
Despite competing on season 35 of Dancing With the Stars, Karagach revealed that she and her husband of 12 years don’t really feel the need to keep score in their romance.
“We're not competing against each other, literally he's my teammate,” Karagach exclusively told E! News' Will Marfuggi after the Sept. 15 premiere. “He's my partner. He's my rock.”
While Karagach and her star partner, Paralympic track and field athlete Ezra Frech, are wearing fighting faces on the ballroom floor, it melts away once she kicks off her heels.
“It’s just never a competition,” she added of working with her husband, with whom she shares 3-year-old daughter Nikita. “He's either helping me or I'm helping him.”
In fact, she, Frech, Pashkov, 40, and his season 35 partner Olympic figure skater Amber Glenn, 26, are so close they even “have dinner all together.”
“We go to our house and just unwind,” the 33-year-old said. “It's just the best time. It doesn't feel like a competition.”
And Frech could not agree more.
“Pasha and Amber are—they're unbelievable,” he raved to E! News. “I love them so much.”
The 21-year-old noted that their friendly foursome is so in sync that it feels like he’d known them his whole life.
“Just amazing human beings, amazing human beings, and that's all you can ask for,” Frech added. “This is a human experience. We're around the castmates all the time. We spend so much time together. Literally, every waking second of the day is spent with these people, and so to have Pasha and Amber by our side? They're fantastic. I love them.”
And while it remains to be seen how Pashkov and Glenn do on night two of the competition, Frech and Karagach were already waltzing into a perfect position after their tango to Kelly Clarkson's "Since U Been Gone" earned them 20 points from the judges—putting them in second place after Harry Shum Jr. and Jenna Johnson, who earned 21 points.
For a deep dive into the all stars hoping to nab the coveted mirror ball trophy on this season of Dancing With the Stars, keep reading.
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Maura Higgins & Mark Ballas
The Love Island UK alum is hoping her love for DWTS doesn't betray her as she manifested this experience.
"I have a vision board and I redo it every year," she told E! News in May. "This year is the first year that I stayed at home by myself on New Year's Eve. I did not go out at all. I made myself a bowl of pasta and a glass of red wine and I redid my vision board for the year. Dancing With the Stars was already on it from the year before. However, I added five more Dancing With the Stars on the board."