Cheryl Burke Reveals Regrets & Fresh Detail About Shock ‘Dancing With the Stars’ Exit

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Cheryl Burke is opening up more about her exit from Dancing With the Stars in 2022 after 17 years, admitting her relationship with the show has been fraught.

“I love the show. I’m a fan. I will always be a fan,” the podcast host said. “However, with that also come disagreements.”

On the April 28 episode of her Sex, Lies, and Spray Tans podcast, the former DWTS pro said her final dance during the season 31 finale wasn’t easy to acquire.

“It was a fight,” Burke explained. “It wasn’t just given to me, like ‘Oh, okay, we’re going to do a beautiful send-off. It was a fight that my team had to really put their foot down and basically put everything into perspective for them. Like, ‘Wow, you don’t want to give her anything, not even a little goodbye?’”

Though her decision to leave the show was her own, Burke felt that it was in her career’s best interest to leave given there was no promotion for her and her team in sight.

“Did I really want to leave it for good and be done? No,” the former pro admitted.

Through the forums of her own podcast episodes as well appearing as a guest on others, Burke has spoken to the difficulties of having left the show since, alluding to being “ghosted” by a group she once considered family.

“It’s not just a dance show,” she explained. “If you’re a true fan of Dancing With the Stars, you’d know that we put our blood, sweat, and tears into every single season.”

“But then that’s what makes all of this stuff, like the ghosting or the not communicating hurt even more than if it were a just a nine-to-five job,” Burke continued. “So I think unless you’ve been on TV…you can’t really understand it.”

The dancer also recently opened up about her exit from DWTS on the podcast Amy & T.J with journalists Amy Robach and T.J. Holmes.

Despite her 26-season-long career on the competition show, Burke was notably not invited back to pay tribute to late judge Len Goodman, who passed in the spring of 2023. The honorary episode “Most Memorable Year” aired in October, with Burke nowhere in sight.

“I found out when everyone else found out, and that was such a stab in the heart for me,” Burke lamented. “I couldn’t believe I wasn’t included in something so special…I should’ve been there. We all know this. I know this.”

Burke speculated that her iHeartRadio podcast played a role in her omission.

“It must be the podcast,” she said. “But it just makes me believe they’re not listening to it.”

Burke also addressed her most recent admission regarding her romantic entanglements on the show. In her episode on Amy & T.J. which aired April 16, she revealed she had three romances with three separate contestants – a claim she’s now correcting, though no names were provided.

“Actually I’m here to clear up any rumors or anything that I said,” explained Burke on a recent episode of Sex, Lies, and Spray Tans. “It’s not three. It’s two. I’m going to just leave it at that.”

Amid this all, Burke has promised her listeners that it would be the last time she would address the issue of her gripes with the show outside of asking her podcast guests about their own personal experiences on the show.

“I do feel closure,” she concluded. “I have no ill will towards anyone, really, but I could still be really hurt and disappointed that I’ve lost friendships along the way, and that is called grieving. And everyone grieves differently, and for me, because a lot of these people I’ve known for almost two decades, it’s going to take time to really put that to rest.”

As Burke embarks on putting her past to rest, naturally the issue of what’s in store for her future must arise.

“I think my fear in general was when I made this decision to leave the show is like, ‘What the hell am I going to do?'” she said.

“And I’m still figuring it out, and that sometimes is scary.”