Cheryl Burke Makes Stunning Claim About Being ‘Blocked’ From Starring in ‘The Bachelorette’
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Dancing With the Stars alum Cheryl Burke has revealed she had high hopes of starring in The Bachelorette, but the show’s bosses told her that then-host Chris Harrison “blocked” her from being cast. And the reason behind it was even more shocking.
Burke spoke to Harrison about it when she joined him on his latest episode of The Most Dramatic Podcast Ever with Chris Harrison, revealing what she’d allegedly been told by producers.
“I heard you blocked that,” she said (per People), referring to why she never got cast on the Bachelorette. “Did you not?”
Harrison seemed surprised but denied doing such a thing, saying, “No. They put that on me. Yeah, like I have that much power… like I have the power to decide who the Bachelor [or] Bachelorette is.”
“I’m not kidding… I think they blamed it on you, absolutely,” Burke replied, adding that executives allegedly told her she “didn’t get to do the Bachelorette because Chris Harrison said that she’s a “sloppy drunk.’”
“That’s so funny,” Harrison responded.
Harrison hosted The Bachelor and its various spinoffs since 2002 and served as an executive producer. However, he left the franchise in June 2021 after his interview with former Bachelorette Rachel Lindsay led to allegations of racism. During the interview, Harrison defended former Bachelor contestant Rachael Kirkconnell for attending a “plantation-themed” sorority party in 2018. He later apologized.
“They, in public, would never give me that kind of power to decide who the Bachelor [or] Bachelorette is,” Harrison told Burke. “I mean Mike [Fleiss, the show’s creator] would ask me, or you know, somebody would ask like, ‘Hey, like, what do you think about Emily Maynard? What do you think about Jason Mesnick or whatever?’ And I give my two cents.”
“There’s a lot of Bachelors and Bachelorettes, and I won’t say anybody specific, that I didn’t think [would work],” he continued. “Well, I will give you one, Sean Lowe, because he turned out to be a good friend and he’s great.”
Burke was a pro dancer on DWTS for 26 seasons between 2006 and 2022, where she became the first female professional to win the show and the first professional to win twice and also consecutively. She left the competition series after the Season 31 finale.
