Gleb Savchenko on His Own Terms

Gleb Savchenko has started to see white owls everywhere he goes.

The first sighting happens in June, when he’s in Joshua Tree. Beneath the pinkish glow of the Strawberry Moon, the Dancing With the Stars pro feels oddly restless, unable to sleep after taking part in a powerful manifestation ritual earlier that day. With too much on his mind, Savchenko figures he might as well look up at the moon, silently slipping past the door and into the chilly desert night. And that’s when something catches Savchenko’s eye: a snow-white owl, nestled within the shaggy leaves of a nearby Joshua tree.

It’s just the beginning of a recurring string of synchronicities, like when I show him the stuffed owl that’s sitting right next to me. He gets excited, knowing that they’re signs that surround you on the cusp of a new life phase.

Originally, we’d scheduled an in-person meeting in L.A, but the dancer asked if we could do a video call at the very last minute. It turns out his “inner child” had begged to go back to Joshua Tree and, after a lifetime spent bending to the will of others, Savchenko decided to follow his heart and return to the desert. In his mind, it’s about finally blazing his own path forward.

For Savchenko, the past decade has been defined by fame and fortune, but it hasn’t entirely been Hollywood glitz and glamour. It’s been years of being pigeonholed as a dancer, limited by the immense scrutiny that comes with being a public figure. It’s a stifling and suffocating experience, akin to living inside a pressure cooker. A situation that hit a little too close to home.

Playgirl’s December 2024 cover • Gleb Savchenko.

“Growing up in communist Russia, training and living off food stamps, it gives you a little different view on life,” Savchenko says. Describing a childhood defined by rigidity and regimentation in a relentless dog-eat-dog society, he paints a vivid picture of living behind the Iron Curtain during a “Soft Cold War” fought through the global domination of culture, sports and art. It was a world where he was only allowed to focus on training for international competitions and constantly being told what to do and who to be, despite “always having that inner child calling to ‘get out, get away.’”

“They keep us so constricted. Everything is just like a rat race,” he says. “But that was the life I knew, and my parents’ mentality was like, ‘Okay, if you’re doing an activity, if we’re investing our time and effort, you’re doing it 100 percent.’”

“So, I’ve been trained to always like ‘deliver or die,’” Savchenko says, adding that it just made him want to escape. And to him, freedom looked like L.A.

Despite manifesting his childhood dream, however, Savchenko was growing increasingly aimless. Eleven seasons into one of the most popular competition shows on American television had left him feeling frustrated and energetically drained, but also aware of the incompatible “levels of understanding” present in both his professional and personal lives.

“My circle of friends kind of changed, and I broke up with my girlfriend of almost three years because we were just not on the same frequency. The energy just wasn’t working,” he says.

Something about the way he speaks about the constraints of Hollywood celebrity feels similar to the way he talks about his upbringing. There’s an undercurrent of frustration, amplified by external pressure and the expectations of others. But letting that affect him was something he wanted to reflect on through meditation, even if it was “hard to stay still.”

“I have a long way to go, but that’s what I want to tap into more. It just helps me to be who I am,” he says. And after months of deep self-reflection, he’s figured out that person is more than just a hunky Dancing with the Stars pro. He’s a motivational speaker, a choreographer, a guest host for the Chippendales’ show in Las Vegas and Atlantic City, and a Playgirl cover star.

What seems to excite him the most, however, is his pivot to acting. He’s the leading man in Swing Into Romance — a film by Dancing With the Stars season 18 guest Danica McKellar — and another rom-com called True North, as a European actor who makes it in Hollywood.

“I’m super excited for this chapter of my life and, between rehearsals for [Dancing with the Stars] season 33, I’ve never [looked forward] to dancing and performing more.”

More photos and the backstage video exclusively on PLAYGIRL+