ABC Cheryl Burke in 2022.
In 2005, Cheryl Burke was one of many professional dancers who auditioned to be on “Dancing with the Stars.” She got the gig — and won the second and third seasons of the celebrity ballroom competition with partners Drew Lachey and Emmitt Smith.
In 2022, Burke announced she was retiring from the DWTS dance floor. And as a parting gift, she gave fans a look at her first and last moments related to the show – and how much she has changed.
Cheryl Burke Shared a Look at Her DWTS Audition Tape From 17 Years Ago
In an Instagram post shared days after the “Dancing with the Stars” season 31 finale, Burke, 38, shared a snippet of her original audition tape. In the clip, the future mirrorball champ had a short, shag hairstyle and thin eyebrows, and she wore a pink fringed outfit as she introduced herself.
“I’m Cheryl Burke,” she said in the tape. “I’m a professional Latin dancer and I bring a lot of energy and wild and sexy moves on the dance floor.”
Elsewhere in the tape, she vowed to bring it to the ballroom.
“On the dance floor I’m very wild, aggressive, and sexy, but off the floor, I’m very to myself, mostly like an all-American girl,” she said, per ABC News. “I’m very sweet. I would bring my own personality and dynamic to the show.”
Fast forward to a second clip showing Burke’s final night in the ballroom as she said goodbye to her “Dancing With the Stars” family after 26 seasons on the show. “You have been part of my identity,” she said to the cast and crew. “Thank you for pushing me to be the greatest artist I could be.”
In the caption to the post, Burke wrote, “Sometimes I wonder what 20-year-old Cheryl would say if I told her the new ballroom dance show she’s auditioning for is going to absolutely change her life? Would she believe that 17 years later she’d be taking her final bow?”
Burke added that she was “so glad that the younger version of me took a chance, snuck out of her studio apartment in Harlem & found the courage to audition.”
Cheryl Burke Has Changed A Lot Since Joining DWTS
Disney PlusCheryl Burke on ‘Dancing With the Stars’ season 31
A lot has happened in Burke’s life since she joined DWTS at age 20. In addition to a marriage and divorce, she quit drinking alcohol and recently marked four years of sobriety.
Her looks also are different after nearly 18 years in the public eye. Burke lost weight after changing her eating habits, but she previously denied having plastic surgery, telling ABC News, “I totally let my guard down and wasn’t expecting people to start hurling insults, especially things about me having fake lips and plastic surgery? That’s literally crazy.”
“I didn’t have plastic surgery, and I don’t have an eating disorder. I’m just actually happy,” she told TMZ in 2014.
More recently, Burke told Us Weekly that she does battle body dysmorphia and that she realized that something was wrong when she was “going back through old seasons” of “Dancing With the Stars” and saw how her costumes looked on her.
“I was pretty skinny and yet I was still giving wardrobe hassle in our fittings,” she said “Meaning not hassling them, more like, ‘Oh, I feel like s***,’ or ‘Oh, my God, look at my fat roll.’ It’s so ridiculous, right?”
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