Cheryl Burke has spent 26 seasons in the pressure-cooker world of Dancing With the Stars, and she has one piece of unvarnished advice for any celebrity considering the ballroom: leave your relationship at the door.
In a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter, the veteran pro dancer likened the celebrity-pro partnership to "an arranged marriage, really"—an intimacy so intense that romantic feelings become nearly impossible to ignore. "Many celebrities and pros develop feelings for each other," Burke warned. Her prescription is simple: "Be single before joining the show."
A History Written in the Ballroom
Burke's observation is not mere speculation. The DWTS ballroom has long doubled as a matchmaking floor, producing several high-profile romances that began under the glare of rehearsal lights.
Peta Murgatroyd and Maksim Chmerkovskiy met through the show's orbit and married in 2017. Kym Johnson and Shark Tank investor Robert Herjavec fell for each other during his 2015 season and wed two years later. Burke herself has acknowledged past romantic entanglements with partners, including her 2006 relationship with actor Drew Lachey and her later romance with former football star Chad Johnson—experiences that lend her warning the weight of firsthand knowledge.
But the track record is hardly spotless. For every couple that marches from the ballroom to the altar, others have seen their on-set chemistry dissolve once the music stopped. Burke was careful to draw that distinction. "It's not always a fairy tale ending," she told The Hollywood Reporter. "Sometimes it's just a really intense experience that you can't replicate in real life."
Why the Spark Is So Hard to Avoid
The conditions on DWTS are engineered for emotional acceleration. Celebrities and their pro partners spend upward of eight hours a day in physical proximity, mastering routines that demand trust, vulnerability, and sustained eye contact. Add sleep deprivation, performance anxiety, and the adrenaline of live television, and the boundary between professional chemistry and personal attraction can blur quickly.
Burke's "arranged marriage" framing captures something the show's glittering costumes rarely acknowledge: the partnership is all-consuming by design. Pros are not merely coaches but caretakers, therapists, and sometimes confidants. For celebrities unaccustomed to that level of sustained intimacy, the emotional stakes can feel disorienting.
What This Means for the Next Generation
Burke, who departed DWTS in 2022 after nearly two decades, has become increasingly candid about the show's behind-the-scenes realities in recent years. Her latest comments arrive as the franchise continues to recruit celebrities from sports, music, and reality television—many of whom arrive with existing partners and little understanding of the emotional terrain ahead.
Whether future contestants will heed her advice remains to be seen. But if Dancing With the Stars has proven anything across its two-decade run, it is that the ballroom rarely leaves its dancers unchanged.
