Cheryl Burke

About Me:

With over thirty years of dancing experience and several championship titles under her belt, two-time Emmy nominated professional dancer Cheryl Burke first discovered her love of dance at the age of four, taking ballet lessons and performing throughout her hometown in San Francisco, California. At eleven, she discovered what would be her winning talent, Ballroom Dancing, and decided to hang up her ballet shoes to begin training competitively all over the world in both the International Standard and American Latin Ballroom Dance categories and styles. At age twenty-one Cheryl rocketed to stardom as the star of ABC’s surprise hit television show, Dancing with the Stars becoming not only the first woman but the first person in the history of the franchise to become a two-time, back-to-back, mirrorball champion, winning her first two consecutive seasons in a row, with NFL superstar and Hall of Famer, Emmitt Smith and 98 Degrees boybander, Drew Lachey. In 2015, Cheryl starred alongside Joe Jonas, Ciara, Nicole Scherzinger, Alan Ritchson, and Marlon Wayans in NBC’s, I Can Do That, a variety show that challenged celebrities to step out of their comfort zones. 2016 marked Burke’s return to Dancing with the Stars. Since that time, she’s danced alongside infamous Olympic swimmer Ryan Lochte, NFL Hall of Famers Terrell Owens and Ray Lewis, Telenovela star William Levy, reality stars Rob Kardashian and Jack Osbourne, and Backstreet Boy, AJ McLean. For her twenty-fifth appearance on the long-running program, she partnered with Peloton instructor Cody Rigsby to a third-place finish in season thirty which marked Cheryl’s eighth appearance in the Finals. In 2016, Cheryl created, directed, wrote, executive produced and starred on Love on the Floor, a live stage show featuring professional dancers of all genres as well as Olympic Gold Medalists and World Champion ice skaters coming together to tell a story of love and its many stages through movement. The evocative stage show included many different genres of dance choreographed by multiple Emmy Award winning choreographers. Cheryl, who created and served as the show’s director and executive producer alongside live event giant IMG, was joined on stage by Kristi Yamaguchi, Meryl Davis, Charlie White, and Daisuke Takahashi. Love on the Floor made its worldwide premiere in June of 2016 in Shibuya at the famous Orb Theatre in Tokyo, Japan where it grossed over two million dollars in ticket sales in just ten sold out shows. In 2017, Cheryl took Love on the Floor back to Tokyo, Japan for the second time where it again exceeded expectations to sold out audiences. Cheryl made headlines in 2016 when she was cast as the replacement coach on Lifetime’s long running reality series, Dance Moms. Hired to replace the legal battle embroiled and controversial Abby Lee Miller, Cheryl went toe to toe with difficult dance moms in season seven and she strived to coach the girls towards success by embracing their unique differences to become the best possible dancers that they could be. In 2020, Cheryl teamed up with Backstreet Boys superstar and former Dancing with the Stars partner AJ McLean to host the iHeartRadio produced podcast, Pretty Messed Up. The duo along with their third host, Rene Elizondo, created a podcast that touched on topics ranging from sobriety to mental health. In July of 2023 will mark Cheryl’s fifth year of sobriety. Burke continued her relationship with iHeartRadio and launched a podcast called Burke in the Game. Currently, Cheryl alongside the streaming giant and top podcast producing company, iHeartRadio, are excited to announce their third podcast called, Sex, Lies, and Spray Tans, which will be launching in August of 2023. In the spring of 2008 Cheryl opened her first of several dance studios, the highly successful Cheryl Burke Dance. In early 2011 Cheryl’s biography, Dancing Lessons: How I Found Passion and Potential on the Dance Floor and in Life, was released. Her memoir addresses topics that shaped Cheryl throughout her life from her experiences with childhood abuse which led to abusive relationships she lived through to harsh criticisms in the press of her weight and body in her early twenties. Not limiting herself to the dance studio, in 2015 Cheryl launched her own clothing line CeeBee, a collection of activewear that were designed to fit the active lifestyle of the average on the go woman. In 2020, during the beginning of the pandemic, Cheryl partnered with Bailey Blue Clothing for a line of affordable, fashionable face masks. The first collection of face masks were inspired by the ballroom dances that you saw on DWTS for which Cheryl was best known for. With the success of the initial launch, the partnership expanded to Cheryl Burke Loungewear, a line of comfy, cozy, and chic pieces for the everyday woman. In 2008, Burke was awarded an Asian Excellence Award. Burke is also a noted and well respected motivational speaker. Having been publicly attacked about her weight, battled body dysmorphia her entire life, and turned victim to survivor of abuse, Burke often speaks at medical conferences, women’s conventions and to school age children about being a survivor of domestic and sexual abuse, self-esteem, and having a healthy body image. Her accomplishments in entertainment were celebrated in 2020 with an induction into the Robert Chinn Foundation’s Asian Hall of Fame. Currently in development on several unscripted television show concepts that she will also produce, Burke decided to hang up her ballroom shoes for good in 2022 at the Finale of season thirty-two of Dancing with the Stars which marked Burke’s twenty-sixth season on the show. Currently, Cheryl’s goal is to use her platform that she has worked hard to build and that consists of over two million plus followers into a growing empire, which includes the launch of Body Language, that will focus on the therapeutic benefits of healing through movement, which Burke has experienced, first-hand. As an avid mental health advocate, her passion in life is to publicly share her honest and inspirational story to millions of people around the world in hopes to help at least one person know that they are not alone.