Val Chmerkovskiy Reveals the Pact He and His Got to Get Out Castmates Made — and Broke — on First Day of Filming tram

Val Chmerkovskiy is teasing his Got to Get Out strategies.

The Dancing with the Stars pro, 39, recently opened up to PEOPLE about participating in Hulu’s new competition series, which premiered on Friday, April 11. Going into it, Chmerkovskiy admits he didn’t know what to expect because it was unlike anything he had done before. 

“I love escape rooms, I love strategy, I love problem-solving,” he explains. “So when I had the opportunity to do a project like this, I was just excited to try something different.”

From the start, there was a sense of unease in the house, and despite attempts to band together, everyone quickly betrayed each other.

“There was a lot of conflict almost immediately,” Chmerkovskiy reveals. “I mean, obviously there's that honeymoon period in the beginning when you're introducing yourself, everybody's excited to start the game and get in the house. But once everything started, and it really, I'd say it was after the first escape, first attempt at escape, everything kind of changed.”

“That was kind of the first lie,” he continues. “Because as a group, we all made a pact that, can we all collectively stay here for 10 days? And if we can, then at the end, can we just all split the prize and we'll all win money? And as soon as that pact was broken, which was literally the first day, then it was game on. And everybody really, not turned on each other, but you kind of see people's real characters come out.”

The show follows 20 television personalities who live under one roof for 10 days, fighting for a chance to win $1 million as they work to get out of the house. As someone whose experience in reality TV revolves around his profession, Chmerkovskiy says he stood apart from the others.

“It was fun to be part of a project that didn't entail me teaching somebody how to dance,” he notes. “I've done that for 20 seasons. I was excited to do something outside of dance, even though I ended up talking about Dancing with the Stars a lot and I ended up teaching some of my housemates some dance moves, but it was all distraction.”

He adds: “It was cool to also make new friends and experience all of that. I watched Omarosa Manigault Newman on The Apprentice more than 20 years ago, so to then have to conspire with her or be at a dinner table talking strategy was like, that was [crazy]. I shared a room with Spencer Pratt, which revealed itself in a lot of ways, which was a lot of fun. And again, then you really had to be smart to come up with different strategies and build alliances.”

For the first few days, Chmerkovskiy says he “laid low” and tried to figure everyone else out so he could create an effective game plan.

“I'm trying to just soak it all in and see what the parameters are and how do I find myself in this mix?” he recalls. “Because the other thing is, there's a lot of personality in that house. So between the personalities from television and a lot of the TV newbies that were really excited to be there — and also were really driven to not just be on this big project alongside some reality TV stars — they were also really motivated to win money. So I'll just say, human nature really revealed itself in the house. People really lost their minds in there.”