Cheryl Burke Needed to ‘Combat’ to Get Farewell Dance on ‘Dancing with the Stars’

Cheryl Burke is disclosing extra particulars about her contentious farewell from Dancing With the Stars. 

On the April 28 episode of her Intercourse, Lies, and Spray Tans podcast, the previous DWTS professional, 39 — who left the present in 2022 after 17 years — stated her remaining dance through the season 31 finale wasn’t simple to amass. 

“It was a combat,” Burke claimed of her farewell efficiency. “It wasn’t simply given to me, like ‘Oh, okay, we’re going to do a stupendous send-off. It was a combat that my group needed to actually put their foot down and mainly put every part into perspective for them. Like, ‘Wow, you don’t need to give her something, not even just a little goodbye?’”

Though she clarified that her departure was voluntary, Burke needed a promotion she and her group knew was by no means coming.  

“Did I actually need to go away it for good and be achieved? No,” the podcast host admitted. 

Burke known as the chance for a goodbye dance “the least” that executives may have achieved for her after she “constantly” confirmed up since 2005 however expressed frustration at how a lot she needed to push.

“What’s fascinating main as much as it, it was nearly like I did not even need to do it anymore as a result of I can inform that it wasn’t essentially their thought,” she defined.

Closing the episode, she promised that it could be the final time she would handle the problem outdoors of asking friends about their experiences on the present. 

“I do really feel closure,” she concluded. “I’ve no unwell will in the direction of anybody, actually, however I may nonetheless be actually harm and upset that I’ve misplaced friendships alongside the best way, and that’s known as grieving. And everybody grieves in another way, and for me, as a result of a number of these individuals I’ve identified for nearly twenty years, it will take time to actually put that to relaxation.”

PEOPLE has reached out to ABC for remark.

The 2-time mirrorball trophy winner lately opened up about her exit from DWTS on the Amy & T.J. podcast. When requested which “divorce” was tougher — the present or her break up from ex-husband Matthew Lawrence — Burke confidently answered the previous.

“Palms down. You may’t evaluate,” she stated.

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Regardless of collaborating in 26 seasons of the competitors sequence, Burke was not invited again to pay tribute to late decide Len Goodman through the present’s “Most Memorable Yr” episode in October 2023. She speculated that her iHeartRadio podcast performed a task within the snub.

“On the finish of the day, everybody can say about this present is that they took one thing away from the present and it made them into a greater individual one way or the other,” she additionally stated on the Amy & T.J. podcast. “I at all times am going again to the truth that I’m in gratitude for my expertise and my time with the community.”

Whether or not she nonetheless feels a way of household within the DWTS neighborhood, she stated concisely, “Positively not.”