Following a slew of dating rumors regarding the two of them, Mauricio, 53, shared a selfie with Emma, 34, from the ballroom as he also spoke out in a new interview, saying that despite their separation, he still considers the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star Kyle Richards, 54, the love of his life.
“My experience was absolutely extraordinary. I would not trade it for the world,” Mauricio said of his time on DWTS on the November 7 episode of Access Daily. “It was something that I had never done. I learned how to live and do something that I didn’t know how to do and tap into [a side of] my brain that was different. I’m a business guy. I’m not a performer. And so tapping into that and doing that was something super special and then learning how to do it and then improving and going through all of this process was awesome.”
Although Mauricio was eliminated from the show last week, he said that the training and regular practicing that went into his performances resulted in major weight loss.
“It’s not just dancing. It is true athletes. I am in the best shape I have been in since my 20s. I lost, in seven weeks, I lost 22 pounds,” he shared, joking that he’s “not” on Ozempic.
“I was eating a lot but I was working out, dancing four hours a day and I was working out another hour, hour and a half a day,” he revealed.
During his time on the show, Mauricio said he appreciated the distraction it provided from the many swirling rumors regarding his separation from Kyle, including their potentially impending divorce.
“I didn’t look [online] that much so that was one way to block it out. But when you’re dancing, when you’re doing this for four hours a day and you’re not a dancer, the only way to get to know it is to be 100 percent focused so it was an amazing distraction given the fact of everything that is going on,” he explained. “It was almost therapeutic and it was really nice.”
When Mauricio was then asked for an update, he said simply, “It is what it is.”
“We’ve addressed it … We are separated right now. We are trying to work through it. We’ve been married for 27 years. It’s been an amazing 27 years — it was an amazing 26 years. It’s been a rough year, but the truth is, you don’t throw in the towel that quickly,” he noted. “It’s been a very successful marriage, an amazing marriage. [Kyle] is my best friend. She’ll always be the love of my life and we’re going through a patch where we’ve decided to take a momentary lapse, a separation, and see what happens. At the moment, we’re just kind of allowing things to happen.”
According to Mauricio, he’s proud of how he and Kyle have handled their split as he described it as “very amicable.”
“We’re not fighting at home. We still love each other and if I were to tell you there’s this perfect way of going through tough times, I feel like that’s the way we’re going through it,” he noted.
As for his hopes, Mauricio said, “Right now, my hopes are that whatever’s meant to be for both of us is what ends up happening.”
“We’re going through it in a very healthy way, we’re speaking with our kids,” he continued. “Our kids are part of it and that’s very important so it’s just part of life and it’s very hard to go through this with so much eyeballs and so much speculation and everybody wondering and 90 percent of the rumors are false and sometimes the speculation turns into reality and sometimes the speculation turns into falsehoods.”
Also during the interview, Mauricio confirmed he’s finished filming the second season of his Netflix series, Buying Beverly Hills, which is based out of his real estate firm, The Agency.
“It came out great. It’s a really exciting show and I can’t wait for that to come out,” he teased.
As Mauricio awaits the trailer for Buying Beverly Hills season two, he’s continuing to spend time with Emma, most recently hanging out with the dancer on the DWTS set, where they took a selfie with host Alfonso Ribeiro, 52.
As for who Mauricio believes will win this season of DWTS, that honor went to actress Xochitl Gomez, 17.
Dancing With the Stars season 32 airs Tuesdays at 8/7c on ABC and Disney+.
The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills season 13 airs Wednesdays at 8/7c on Bravo.