Cheryl Burke admits to 'showmances' with 3 'DWTS' partners, names 1: Dancing is an 'intimate contact sport'
"Dancing with the Stars" alum Cheryl Burke revealed that she had "showmances" with three of her celebrity partners during her time on the hit series.
On Tuesday, the 39-year-old former professional dancer reflected on her 26-season run on the ABC dance competition show during an appearance on "The Amy & T.J. Podcast." While discussing the inspiration behind the name of her "DWTS" podcast "Sex, Lies & Spray Tans," Burke was asked if there was a lot of "sex going on behind-the-scenes" during filming.
"Obviously!" Burke told hosts Amy Robach and T.J. Holmes. "I mean, like, look. There was lots of dry humping because that happens in the rumba. Right? There's lots of that. Look, dancing, especially ballroom, is an intimate contact sport."
She continued, "And it happens! It does happen. And, look, I'll be the first. I'm not gonna say who, but I've had my own showmances. You know? It happened."
Burke told Robach and Holmes that the show doesn't have a policy against relationships between the pro dancers and the celebrity contestants. She noted that rumored romances between "DWTS" pairs often made headlines, saying, "Supposedly I had showmance with every single partner, including Wayne Newton."
"I was that girl," Burke said, "Yeah, I was definitely labeled as that woman."
When asked about how many showmances she actually had, Burke admitted, "I would say that it's three."
However, Burke explained that it was challenging to make showmances work outside the show.
"That was the problem," Burke said. "Because it's seven days a week."
Burke pointed out that there were "a lot of great relationships" that came out of the show.
"People got married from the show, right?" she said. "But it's seven days a week. You are consumed with each other."
"Also we've seen their insecurities," Burke continued. "They're vulnerable, and especially as a professional woman who was a ballroom dancer teaching, let's say the athlete, for example, who feels like this macho [person], all of a sudden has to be like, 'I don't know if I can shift.'"
"In order to be successful on ‘Dancing With the Stars,’ you have to be ready to be vulnerable," she added. "Like you got to feel stupid. You got to look stupid. You got to be okay with that."
Robach noted that the celebrity contestants need to establish trust with their pro partners.
"That's the thing. Because if you don't [trust], your life is going to be a living hell with me," Burke said with a laugh. "But the trust has to come soon. Like it's not normal to trust someone after only a few days, right?"
Burke recalled that she tried to continue a relationship with one of her partners after the show wrapped but "it just wasn't going to happen."
When asked if she fell in love with any of her partners, Burke said that her showmances were based on "lust."
"It's not love, right?" Burke said. "It is in that moment. Then you're like, ‘Wait a second, how is this person, like in the real world?’"
"All of a sudden the rules change, like I'm no longer an influence in that sense," she explained. "So it's a weird control thing, you know."
Burke went on to name Chad Ochocinco Johnson as one "DWTS" partner with whom she had a showmance, recalling that the former professional football player "basically professed his love to me" on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show."
In 2010, Johnson, 46, competed on the 10th season of "DWTS" and was paired with Burke. The two sparked romance rumors at the time which were further fueled when Johnson gave Burke a $10,000 diamond ring during an episode.
"People were like, 'Oh, you're engaged! He gave you a diamond!'" Burke remembered "And I was like, 'No.'"
Burke joined "DWTS" as a pro dancer for the show's second season in 2006. She competed in 26 seasons before leaving the series after its season 31 finale in 2022.
Though she never publicly dated anyone from "DWTS," Burke met her future husband Matthew Lawrence on the show's set in 2006 when his brother Joey Lawrence was a celebrity contestant. Burke and Lawrence split in 2008 after a year of dating but reconnected in 2017.
The two tied the knot in May 2019 but divorced in 2022. During her appearance on the "Amy & T.J." podcast, Burke told the former "GMA 3" hosts that she isn't ready to date again yet, adding that she doesn't have a specific timeline for when she will be open to another romantic relationship.
"I would love to plan my whole life like that on a timeline, but, like, I'm trying to be a recovering control freak, though," she said. "I'm still a major micromanager, but, I just need to know me first."
"I need to really be comfortable in my own skin, or else I'm gonna fall into that same pattern of clearly of what didn't work for me," Burke added. "I wasn't a great picker."