Cheryl Burke has some advice for celebrities looking to join Dancing With the Stars: don’t sign up if you’re in a relationship.
“It’s an arranged marriage. And it is black and white,” Burke, 40, said on the Friday, May 31, episode of her “Sex, Lies and Spray Tans” podcast. “Either love each other or hate each other for real.”
The professional dancer pointed out that contestants and their dance partners spend a lot of time together rehearsing their performances. As a result, there is room for couples to develop either extreme love or extreme dislike for each other.
“It’s so intimate, and you’re stuck with this person. You better try and make it work at least,” Burke said about how celebrities have to be “vulnerable” while competing on the ABC show. “You get close in so many ways. … These celebrities are so vulnerable because in order to succeed you have to strip it all down. And that alone? I bet you most of these married celebrities have never even done that with their [partners].”
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Burke clarified that she wouldn’t talk anyone out of joining DWTS, adding, “Be single if you do Dancing With the Stars. That’s all I’m saying.”
Burke was a dancer on the competition reality show for 26 seasons before she officially retired in 2022. Her advice on finding love behind the scenes comes after Burke started dating Matthew Lawrence in 2007 when his older brother, Joey Lawrence, appeared as a contestant on season 3 of Dancing With the Stars. One year later, Burke and Matthew, 44, called it quits before rekindling their romance in 2017.
The pair got married in 2019, but Burke officially filed for divorce three years later.
At the time, Burke addressed the obstacles she has faced since the breakup. “If I’m being honest, really feeling my feelings is new to me,” she wrote via Instagram in March 2022, noting she felt emotionally “numb” most of her life. “There’s the obvious reason it’s hard — that the emotions I’m experiencing right now are complicated and aren’t exactly happy.”
Burke continued: “But the less obvious reason is that I’m realizing I have a tendency to judge my own feelings and if I’m with other people, that magnifies. I get so focused on other people’s perception of how I’m dealing with my emotions — which then in turn leads me to question if I am feeling things the ‘right way.’”
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Burke also discussed how she was working on herself before getting back into dating.
“I need to believe and love myself enough to really know that I deserve a good guy,” she exclusively told Us Weekly in May 2022. “This is just untraining my brain. I need to not be like, ‘Why do I attract certain men?’ Versus, like, ‘Why do certain men disgust me?’ It’s being proactive in trying to stay present and conscious and know my self-worth. And a lot of that is still in the works.”
Matthew, meanwhile, publicly moved on with TLC’s Rozonda “Chilli” Thomas in 2023. He later said he was excited to take the next step with his girlfriend.
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“That’s the game plan [to have kids]. That’s what we’re trying to do,” the actor revealed to Entertainment Tonight in March 2023. “My life is in complete bloom right now. I get to spend time with an amazing woman like Chilli. I’ve never gotten to be able to experience that kind of relationship before. She’s really, really special.”
Matthew clarified that he didn’t mean to put “pressure” on the singer, 53, telling E! News that same month, “[My brother] Joe and I were commiserating about this plan that we had to have children together … when we were growing up. And I missed the first go-around and now he’s starting a new family and I was thinking, ‘Man, it’d be great if we could do it again, when I didn’t have the chance to raise a family together.’ So that’s what I meant by that.”
