Born on March 13, 1978, Karina Smirnoff is an international dancing sensation from Kharkiv, Ukraine best known for her stint on the ABC show Dancing with the Stars. She is a graduate of Fordham University, where she majored in both economics and information system programming. Smirnoff originally wanted to go to law school, but instead, her passion for dancing led her to win the US Open thrice, the Asian Open twice and the Dutch Open and the US National Professional Championships five times. She has trained under famous dance coaches such as Espen Salsberg, Donnie Burns, Tone Nyhagen and Ralf Lepehne, and was given a small role in the dance movie Shall We Dance? where she shared the screen with fellow Dancing with the Stars dancer Tony Dovolani .
Karina Smirnoff first participated in the ABC reality serie during the show’s third season. She was paired with actor Mario Lopez and ultimately placed second, losing to the tandem of dancer Cheryl Burke and NFL star Emmitt Smith . After the season wrapped, Smirnoff and Lopez began dating. The two confirmed the rumors of a split on June 4, 2008. For the fourth season, Smirnoff was paired with singer and actor Billy Ray Cyrus and finished fifth. For the fifth season, she was paired with boxer Floyd Mayweather, Jr. where they became the fourth couple eliminated. On season 6, Smirnoff is paired with R&B singer Mario. The two got eliminated on the show’s 8th week.
Outside of professional dancing, Smirnoff was the project manager of Tornado Dance’s international professional ballroom dancing event called Day and Night on November 18, 2006. She also performed on the 2007 ALMA Awards on June 5th. She also guest-starred in an episode of the hit Disney show Hannah Montana called Everybody Was Best-Friend Fighting, where she played a fortune teller.