Brooks Nader and Gleb Savchenko Disney/Eric McCandless
Dancing With the Stars pro Gleb Savchenko isn’t hiding his feelings for Sports Illustrated model Brooks Nader, and his daughter wants to know everything.
In a Tuesday, October 15, appearance on “Boyfriend Material With Harry Jowsey,” Savchenko, 41, recalled his daughter’s reaction to the viral video of him and Nader, 28, kissing backstage at the DWTS set.
“[My daughter] sent me that TikTok that went viral when me and Brooks are making out backstage, she was like, ‘Dad, I want all the tea,’” Gleb said. “Because there’s a lot of things on TikTok and she’s just watching that like, ‘No I want all the tea.’ I was like, OK, shut up.’”
Savchenko shares daughters Olivia, 13, and Zlata, 7, with ex-wife Elena Samodanova but said he hasn’t discussed Nader with them just yet.
“Because I tell her, she’s going to tell her mom, and just, yeah, not going to go there,” he explained.
Olivia and Zlata Savchenko Courtesy of Gleb Savchenko/Instagram
Not that his relationship with Nader is a secret. Just last month, a source told Us Weekly exclusively that the pair were “hooking up.”
“It’s casual for now, and they’re both just having fun,” the insider said at the time. “Brooks and Gleb have been very flirtatious from the beginning of rehearsals. They aren’t dating, but they’re enjoying spending time together and getting to know each other.”
Nader herself told Us that she found “instant connection and chemistry” with Savchenko.
“We don’t get to pick our partners, so we have no idea until we meet them that first day who it is. It was definitely a sign from some universe that I got paired with Gleb,” she said.
For now, however, Savchenko is playing it coy when asked about their relationship. Jowsey, 27, pressed him on whether he is in love with Nader, only for him to reply, “I don’t know, maybe.’
Brooks Nader and Gleb Savchenko Disney/Eric McCandless
Not that it stopped him from gushing about Nader as a partner on DWTS season 33, where they placed ninth.
“In one of the pages [of my journal], I described a perfect person, and I wrote all the things, and Brooks hits 99 percent of it,” he said. “She’s really, really cool.”
He added that he didn’t expect to come out of the show with an offstage partner after recently splitting from longtime girlfriend Elena Belle.
“I wasn’t planning on meeting anyone,” he said. “I was going through — I broke up with my girlfriend of three years and I was going through a lot, just wanted to be on my own. Never planned anything.”
Dancing With the Stars airs simultaneously on ABC and Disney+ Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET. You can stream episodes on Disney+ the next day.
