TAKE 2: Maksim Chmerkovskiy partners up with Kirstie Alley again for the all-star season. (
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Maksim Chmerkovskiy is leaving the ballroom.
The hot-tempered hoofer says he will not return to “Dancing With the Stars” after his current contract expires at the end of next year.
“What else do I have to do there after 15 seasons?” he tells The Post. “It makes total sense. The audience can’t expect for me to want to stick around, and the producers can’t expect for me to want to stick around.”
Maks — who re-teams with Kirstie Alley for the show’s all-star season on Monday — says he plans to pursue acting and possibly a reality show with his brother, Val.
He has already secured the lead in a major studio movie, which begins filming in January.
Over breakfast at Fratelli Cafe in West Hollywood, the bearded bad boy admitted many of the “Dancing” pros are growing frustrated in the shadows of their celebrity partners.
“Essentially, 80% of our job is to give somebody another push in their career,” he says. “Or we make them into likable characters. But at the end of the day, they go off and they better themselves.
“I loved doing it. But to be honest with you, at 32, I am at what-about-me time.’”
“I am not thinking that with me leaving, the show will go off the air or anything,” he says. “Like my dad said, ‘There are no irreplacable people.’ I wish them the next 50 years of success. But I have to do something else. I need to move on for me.“
Acting is a logical next step for Maks, who currently hosts the Ukranian game show “The Cube” and once appeared on that country’s version of “The Bachelor.”
“I never thought I was ready,” he admits. “Then I had a whole day of reading with the director and casting director, and I enjoyed it so much! I caught the bug, as they say. This is something I really want to do.”
In his romantic-comedy debut, Maks plays a Latin dancer “who is a bit of a hustler,” he says.
“The [female lead] is faced with the choice between somebody really attractive and appealing and somebody who looks like a lifelong partner.
“Who she chooses, you will have to watch the movie. But I like that I get to portray somebody that I would not like for my daughter.”
The only thing that makes him nervous, Maks says: “I have never had a romantic scene before.”
But he has had plenty of memorable moments in the ballroom with Alley. They finished in second place together during season 12.
This year, the pair is prepared for even stiffer competition.
“We may have had a couple of weeks last time that we cruised on popularity or fan appeal or whatever,” he says.
“But I am not really sure that is going to work for us this time. I am not sure people are going to vote for us just because it is us.”
Since joining the show in Season 2, Maks — who owns four dance studios in the NYC area — has become one of “Dancing’s” most polarizing personalities.
He famously fired an f-bomb backstage at judge Carrie Ann Inaba in 2011 and once suggested acid-tongued judge Len Goodman should retire.
In a recently published book, former partner Hope Solo even accused him of slapping her during rehearsals — which he has been instructed not to discuss.
“But I am not doing that ‘Maks thing’ anymore,” he says. “I don’t think I need to, and I don’t want to. It did what it did for me, but I want people to know that I am not a one-sided personality. I am a lot of fun to watch, even without constant drama.”