Cheryl Burke has “zero interest” in ever returning to Dancing with the Stars. Nor does she harbor any regrets about the time she spent on the popular dancing competition.
“I’m done with that,” Cheryl said. “Feelings aside, I just have zero interest in teaching another celebrity how to dance, to be quite honest.”
The professional dancer claims to be in a much better place since she first left the show in 2022. “I don’t think I would be in a spot where it would be so easy for me to get sucked back in [in] a way where it starts to define me again,” she says now. “And I’m still a little vulnerable to say, ‘OK, I’m ready to do that.’”
Cheryl Burke would have liked to remain “a part of the [DWTS] family”
Two years after leaving the show, Cheryl still has hurt feelings and “unanswered questions” about why she wasn’t asked back to the show in another capacity.
“I can only assume … it was the podcast,” she told Us Weekly. Cheryl heads up the Sex, Lies, and Spray Tans podcast, where she often spills behind-the-scenes secrets from her days on the show.
Cheryl was a coach/mentor on the dance competition show for 26 seasons. Before the Season 31 finale, she made it clear that she’d love to come back in a different role, perhaps as a judge.
“They are very well aware that I want that seat,” she said in 2022. “It’s not that I just want it, I just know that I can contribute because I am an expert in ballroom dancing. I can say that with confidence. I can also say that my teaching methods haven’t been known [for] being sugar-coated.”
“[DWTS execs] have been very well aware for probably a few years now,” she continued. “Unfortunately, that decision is not up to me. I would love to still be a part of the family. I just would love a different role on the show, just like anybody [would] after 26 seasons.”
Cheryl’s “telling the honest truth” about DWTS
Since leaving the show, Cheryl started her podcast, featuring interviews with former contestants and show recaps. She wonders whether her podcast was the reason she wasn’t invited to take part in the tribute to beloved judge Len Goodman in October 2023.
“I found out [about Len’s tribute] when everyone else found out,” she says. “That was just a stab in the heart for me. I just couldn’t believe that I wasn’t included in something so special. More than anything, I just [felt] really sad. I’m still so sad.”
“It just makes me believe that they’re not listening to [my podcast],” she adds. “We need to attract listeners, and unfortunately, with that, you have to put clips together that may sound a little like, ‘Oh, she’s just bashing the show.’ No, that’s not what the podcast is. It’s telling the honest truth.”
Even so, she stands by her decision to leave DWTS. It was time.
“I am still, in a way, grieving, but [it’s] not nearly as heavy as it was a year ago,” she admits. “I also feel like it’s been helpful to hear my guest’s stories and what they’ve been through … But there’s also beautiful memories, and [that’s] everything.”
Dancing with the Stars airs Tuesdays at 8/7c on ABC and Disney+.
TELL US – DO YOU MISS CHERYL ON DWTS? DO YOU THINK SHE WAS TREATED UNFAIRLY BECAUSE OF HER PODCAST?
