Settlement Reached in DWTS Pro’s Custody Battle

Disney Plus Cheryl Burke and Matthew Lawrence have reached a settlement in their custody case.

A settlement has been reached in the custody case between “Dancing With the Stars” professional dancer Cheryl Burke and her ex-husband Matthew Lawrence over who gets custody of their dog Ysabella in the divorce.

Here’s what you need to know:

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Matthew Lawrence Gave Cheryl Burke Total Custody of French Bulldog Ysabella

Cheryl Burke filed for divorce from her husband of less than three years, Matthew Lawrence, in February 2022, citing a separation date of January 7, 2022. Now a year after they separated, they finally settled the last matter in their divorce, custody of their French bulldog Ysabella.

The divorce was finalized in September 2022, but Burke revealed at the time on the October 4 episode of her podcast “Burke in the Game” that they could not agree on who would get custody of Ysabella.

“I am now officially divorced. This all happened the premiere night of ‘Dancing With the Stars.’ I saw it in the press, didn’t believe it until my attorney called me two days later,” Burke said, adding, “It’s still not over because we have to maybe go to trial. Well, we are going to go to trial unless he all of a sudden calls it off. But that will happen in January.”

Lawrence calling it off is exactly what happened. According to TMZ, Burke and Lawrence reached an agreement in which Burke was awarded all ownership rights to Ysabella. Lawrence gave up the title of “pet parent,” which he was registered as as part of the HomeAgain microchipping service.

TMZ reports that now a judge just has to sign off on the agreement and Burke’s divorce will be completely settled.

On the podcast where Burke talked about the possible trial, she became audibly choked up about the thought of losing Ysabella.

“That’s my dog. Ysabella is my daughter. I’m a dog mom and that’s it. I couldn’t even imagine my life — I could just cry right now — couldn’t imagine my life without her,” said Burke.

And on another podcast episode from September 2022, she called Lawrence “vindictive” for fighting her over custody of the dog.

“Since day one, I have honestly been the person responsible for [Ysabella] both financially and emotionally. She is technically my emotional support animal, or my service dog,” said Burke. “I just took her with me to New York, she flew with me, she was sitting on my lap, so she is a service dog. … I paid the majority of the cost as far as Ysabella goes and now I guess to have this happen just really feels like it’s vindictive and I’m really sad about it. I couldn’t imagine my life without her.”

Lawrence is In a New Relationship With TLC’s Chilli

Since the split, Lawrence has been seeing Rozonda “Chilli” Thomas of the group TLC. On New Year’s Day 2023, the couple went public on Instagram with their new relationship, which they later confirmed to People via Chilli’s rep Christal Jordan.

Chilli’s rep told the magazine that the new couple spent Thanksgiving and Christmas together in Atlanta and that Lawrence has met Chilli’s family.

“I’ve never seen her this in love. She is glowing. They are really cute together,” said Chilli’s rep.

The day the news was confirmed, Burke posted a card to her Instagram stories that simply read, “That was fast…”, but she has not directly addressed the new relationship.

On Reddit, some “Dancing With the Stars” fans think that it wasn’t actually that fast for Lawrence to move on and they think Burke is the one who needs to move on.

Burke retired from “Dancing With the Stars” at the end of season 31 after 26 seasons on the show. The dancing competition series returns for its 32nd season in 2023 on Disney Plus.