‘Dancing With the Stars’ Pro Alleges Abusive Ex ‘Whipped’ Her

ABC "Dancing With the Stars" professional dancers.

“Dancing With the Stars” professional dancer Cheryl Burke is opening up about previous relationships.

In a new episode of “Red Table Talk” airing on Facebook Watch on November 2, 2022, Burke alleged that an ex-boyfriend abused her in front of his parents while they were in high school.

“Not to get too graphic, but in high school — I’ll never forget — the person I was with whipped me with a belt,” Burke shared in a clip of the interview.

She adds in the clip that she had “bruises all over my legs” and his parents, who were allegedly in the same room, did nothing to help her.

“I remember his parents were watching it, didn’t do anything,” Burke said in the clip.

Burke Has Been Open About Past Relationships in Previous Videos

Burke previously opened up about past abusive relationships in a long-form YouTube video.

“I wanna share my experiences with all of you because I hope, you know, in turn, that it could help anyone who may have experienced something similar to know that there is hope on the other side,” Burke said.

She talked about allegedly being hit with a belt after her boyfriend hit her car.

“So I pulled over, and he came into my car, he took his belt off, and he whipped me with it,” she alleged in the video. She added that his parents were watching and didn’t do anything about it.

They were together all the way through Burke’s senior year, she said. When she went to New York for dance, she alleges that he followed her there as well and she said she saw him everywhere even when they weren’t talking to each other anymore.

“This whole thing was such a bad, toxic cycle,” she said in the video. “And I would really get affected by everything on such a deep level.”

That wasn’t Burke’s first toxic relationship, she told viewers of the video.

She shared that she started dating a senior in high school when she was a freshman. She said he fit all the “bad boy” tropes that she was looking for and that he already had a baby.

“I remember sneaking around with him… and him having sex with me after telling him I didn’t want to, and it ended pretty forcefully,” Burke alleged in the video.

The Professional Dancer Got Divorced in Early 2022

Burke and her now ex-husband, Matthew Lawrence, met in 2007, and they dated for one year before splitting up. Then, the two reconnected and reconciled in 2017. In 2018, the two got engaged before getting married in May 2019.

Burke filed for divorce in February 2022 after almost three years of marriage, according to documents obtained by Us Weekly at the time.

The two are set to go to trial over custody of their dog, a Frenchie bulldog named Ysabella, in January 2023.

During the September 19 episode of her podcast “Burke In the Game,” Burke shared an update about the situation.

“I know that some of you must have been reading some of the headlines that have been out recently about my divorce and about how there’s one thing pending, which is very true and all true, which is my dog Ysabella. For those of you that follow me, you know that I’m a dog mom. I love my Frenchie, Ysabella,” said Burke.

She added that the update is “just devastating.”

“Dancing With the Stars” airs on Mondays at 8 p.m. ET/PT on Disney+.