Cheryl Burke has been a Dancing With the Stars staple through the years — even earning the coveted mirror ball trophy twice.
The California native, after a successful career as a competitive ballroom dancer, joined the DWTS pro lineup in 2006 for season 2. Burke’s first season proved to be lucky, as she and Drew Lachey ultimately won the competition. The Dance Moms alum took home her second trophy the next year, dancing with NFL star Emmitt Smith.
“Ballroom dancing is a technical sport. I think it’s important that [the judges] get the last final say because I think it’s important that everyone understands why [they give certain scores],” the choreographer wrote in a September 2019 blog for Us Weekly about the competition series amid frequent judge criticism. “If someone’s not technically sound or even close to being as good of a dancer as the other couple, they should be the ones going home.”
She added at the time: “If I were a judge, I think I’d probably be the same way [as Len Goodman] because we’re being told that we’re bringing this back to ballroom and then that separates everybody. I felt like every dance last season was a freestyle. As a choreographer and as a professional dancer, you don’t know what to follow. I know the rules from the beginning of the competition when I started almost 14 years ago.”
After securing two DWTS championships, Burke continued teaching celebs to dance on the then-ABC broadcast. She has partnered with the likes of Ian Ziering, Gilles Marini, Chad Ochocinco, Rob Kardashian, Jack Osbourne, Ryan Lochte, Drew Carey, Terrell Owens, AJ McLean and Cody Rigsby. Burke and Smith attempted to recreate their season 3 win during season 15’s all-stars season but finished in fourth place instead.
While the I Can Do That alum has found several lasting bonds in her past partnerships, not all pairings were seamless.
“My least favorite [partner] would be Ian Ziering. The fact that his name is not ‘ee-an’ and it’s ‘eye-an’ makes me want to throw up,” she said during an April 2019 appearance on Matt Weiss and Theo Von’s “Allegedly” podcast, referring to the Beverly Hills, 90210 alum. “Think of spending time with that for, like, eight to 10 hours a day, seven days a week, for three months. It made me want to slit my wrists. I was, like, crying to the executives. I was like, ‘Is there any way to please just eliminate us?’ They’re like, ‘We can’t. We can’t do that.’ And I swear, every time I asked, we just kept going. We would last till the end.”
Burke has since apologized for her candid remarks, noting she should have not made a joke about suicide.
While Burke’s partnership with Ziering was rocky, she’s had better luck with the Backstreet Boys singer and Sam Champion during seasons 30 and 31.
“With this season in particular, there’s peace along with the whole elimination process,” Burke exclusively told Us in October 2022 of dancing with the Good Morning America weatherman on DWTS season 31, the series’ first on Disney+. “Like, normally I’m a nervous, sweaty wreck, but with Sam, if I’m looking at the actual ability of all the celebrities? We are very blessed to still be in this competition, to be quite honest, and Sam knows that.”
Scroll below for Burke’s candid thoughts about her experience on DWTS:
