David Krumholtz Explains Missing Ledger Tribute

David Krumholtz said he was absent from the Dancing With the Stars tribute to Heath Ledger because he was filming in the Catskill Mountains, not because he declined to join the 10 Things I Hate About You reunion.

In an Instagram video posted Oct. 21, Krumholtz said he could not be in Los Angeles for the Oct. 20 episode, which featured Julia Stiles and pro partner Ezra Sosa performing to Frank Valli’s “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You” in a routine inspired by the 1999 film. The ballroom cameo included Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Gabrielle Union, Larisa Oleynik, Andrew Keegan and Susan May Pratt.

Krumholtz sounded less defensive than genuinely disappointed. He said he “would have loved” to be there and called Stiles’ tribute to Ledger “amazing and stunning,” adding that he was proud of her. That matters, because reunion television is built on the tiny paranoia that an absence must mean a feud, a snub or at minimum a scheduling excuse with better hair. In this case, he offered the plainest answer available: he was working.

He also joked that his freshly shaved head might have become internet fodder had he appeared, but he made clear that was not the reason he missed it. The distinction is minor and also very celebrity-era: even grief now arrives with a side calculation about screenshots.

The tribute itself was pointedly nostalgic without becoming ghoulish. According to E! News, Stiles said during the episode that Ledger had been “so authentic” and that she wished she could tell him how much the film still means to people. Her dance with Sosa drew on Patrick Verona’s serenade from the film, then closed with part of Kat Stratford’s poem as she embraced her former castmates.

That kind of television can go wrong very easily. A dead co-star is not a mood board. But the structure here, at least from the details available, seems to have leaned on memory and cast history rather than trying to simulate Ledger’s presence. Krumholtz’s video only sharpened that feeling. His absence became part of the texture of the reunion rather than a scandal around it: one more reminder that reviving a beloved film cast is always a little imperfect, because time insists.

He ended his message simply, saying he loved them all. Sometimes the cleanest celebrity explanation is also the most persuasive one.