7 Things You Didn’t Know About DWTS Pro Cheryl Burke

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6. Bullied

As a child, Burke was bullied. Other kids called her “monkey” because she had darker skin and big lips. Since she’s become famous, the bullying hasn’t stopped. When she first appeared on Dancing with the Stars, she was criticized for being too curvy and when she lost 25 pounds in 2014 she was criticized for being too thin after she posted a picture of herself vacationing in Los Cabo. “People are saying ‘What have you done to your face?’, ‘You look disgusting, you look like you’re dying,’” she said.

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5. Sexual Abuse

Starting when she was around the age of five, she was sexually abused by a friend of the family. He was a retired mailman who would sometimes pick Cheryl up from school and would do odd jobs around the house for her mom. “It was lots of touching,” she said. “He would pull my pants down in his van or he would touch me in the living room while Ima was in the kitchen cooking.” After other children accused him of assault, Cheryl finally acknowledged what happened to her and testified against him in court when she was six. He was sent to prison, but she was left struggling with guilt and confusion.

A photo posted by Cheryl Burke (@cherylburke) on Feb 19, 2015 at 2:19pm PST

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4. Abusive Relationships

After losing her virginity when she was 14 years old, she went though a string of unhealthy relationships. According to her, she had one boyfriend who beat her with a belt and another who forced her to have sex with him, but she stayed in these relationships because of her fear of abandonment. “I needed to be loved. The last thing I wanted to feel was abandoned,” she told People. “Every time I’d say, ‘Okay, enough,’ I would feel so alone. I had no control.” It took finding a good therapist to finally start the long healing process.

Featureflash Photo Agency / Shutterstock.com

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3. Family

Cheryl Stephanie Burke was born in San Francisco, California, on May 3, 1984 to Sherri, a nurse-turned-entrepreneur of Filipino descent, and Stephen, an attorney of Irish and Russian descent. Her parents divorced when she was just a baby and her mother remarried a dentist named Bob Wolf in 1993. She has an older stepsister Mandy and a younger half sister Nicole, who was born when she was nine.

A photo posted by Cheryl Burke (@cherylburke) on Jul 21, 2016 at 5:23pm PDT

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2. First Love

The dancing pro started ballet lessons when she was four and began ballroom dancing when she was 11. She fell in love with it after her parents starting taking lessons for fun. She entered her first ballroom dancing competition when she was 12 and before long she was traveling around the world, competing in ballroom dancing competitions.

 

A photo posted by Cheryl Burke (@cherylburke) on Jun 9, 2016 at 7:53am PDT

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1. Cavity Prone

Despite growing up with a stepdad who was a dentist, the professional dancer has had her fair share of cavities. “I didn’t use floss. My dad would say, ‘make sure you floss,’ but I never really listened to him. I was very, very stubborn.” Finally, in her twenties, she finally began to follow her stepdad’s advice and began flossing and, as a result, she stopped getting cavities. “I floss after every meal,” she said. “I carry floss with me wherever I go. I have no shame busting out my floss in the middle of a restaurant!”

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Cate

Cate has a B.A. and an M.A. in English Literature and has been the Managing Editor of Fame10 for more than 6 years. Despite having a love for the works of Thomas Hardy, Leo Tolstoy and Lord Byron, she also has an intense fascination with pop culture. When she isn’t writing for Fame10, she’s planning her next big adventure in Southeast Asia.