Former “Dancing with the Stars” pro Cheryl Burke is opening up about her love life.
During a recent episode of iHeartRadio’s “I Do, Part 2” podcast, Burke reflected on her relationship and divorce from actor Matthew Lawrence and the changes she made in her life after her marriage ended.
“I’m not dating, and I’m choosing not to date. Like, forget the marriage,” she said when discussing what’s next for her. “How about just meeting somebody? I’m like, ‘I am perfectly content in this home, with these four walls. I never have to leave.’”
When asked if it’s been “over 365 days” since her last date, Burke said, “Oh, for sure,” adding she has “zero interest” in meeting anyone at the moment.
The professional dancer later admitted she is walking around with “blinders on,” and although she “still think[s] guys are hot,” she recognizes that “that doesn’t mean … that they deserve” her.
Lawrence and Burke first dated for a year, from 2007 to 2008, reuniting almost a decade after their split in February 2017. The couple got married two years later, in May 2019. After three years of marriage, Burke filed for divorce in February 2022. Burke explained it was her idea to get married because, at the time, her singular “goal was to get married.”
“Now, I’m a different woman, and I’m like, it’s just so interesting how we put so much pressure, especially women, because we think that there’s this schedule that we need to follow as far as getting married and having kids,” she explained.
“It’s like, it’s the conventional way, right? It’s what society expects from you. But it doesn’t have to be in any order or at any time — amen — or does it ever have to happen, period?”
Upon reflection, Burke recognizes her decision to get married had “nothing to do with the person I married” but more to do with her lack of love for herself and seeking something external to “fill my cup up.”
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“No one is going to fill your cup up. Shopping’s not going to fill your cup up. You are,” the former “Dancing with the Stars” pro said. “You need to do the internal work, and that did not make any sense to me until recently.”
After her divorce, one of the decisions Burke made was to become celibate, a decision she chose to share in an August 2024 Instagram reel in which she revealed she had been celibate for three years.
She went on to explain that she “fall[s] in love fast,” which “is not a good thing” when it comes to being intimate with someone, sharing that is something she is “working through.”
Burke said after being intimate with others in the past, “this person and the fantasy of this person” would “completely take over,” which wasn’t good for her because “none of it was real.”
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“The only thing that was real with whatever happened physically [is] that you allowed for it to happen,” she said. “And I think a lot of that maybe back in the day when I would have casual maybe relationships or intimacy, it really just continued to chip away at my soul because, at the end of the day, that says a lot about me.”
