Cheryl Burke Apologizes to Dance Partner Ian Ziering for Harsh Comments
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Dancing With The Stars pro Cheryl Burke has regrets about past comments she made about dance partner Ian Ziering. On her podcast, Pretty Messed Up with cohost AJ McLean of The Backstreet Boys, she apologized to the Sharknado actor for going on a rant in 2016 about how he was her “least favorite” partner.
Cheryl Burke Apologizes to Former Dance Partner Ian Ziering
Burke and Ziering competed on Dancing With The Stars in 2007. The duo landed in fourth place and it wasn’t until nine years later that Burke opened up on the Allegedly podcast about despising this partnership.
“It made me want to slit my wrists,” she said in 2016. “I was, like, crying to the executives. I was like, ‘Is there any way to please just eliminate us?’ They’re like, ‘We can’t. We can’t do that.’ And I swear, every time I asked, we just kept going. We would last till the end.”
At the time, Burke apologized for seeming to make light of suicide. Now, she is apologizing for how hurtful her comments were for Ziering.
“The one thing that I feel like I truly regret and I want to make amends with is Ian Ziering,” she said during her recent podcast. “I was completely out of line a few years ago. I did a podcast where they were asking me who my favorite partner was and who did I hate the most. I answered Ian Ziering, and I said something along the lines of ‘I’d rather slit my wrists than dance with Ian Ziering again.'”
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“I know it hurt him, and I know it hurt his family. It was a big deal,” she continued. “I’m here to say sorry. I truly am so sorry for being so inconsiderate and just talking, trying to basically get a reaction and putting him as my punching bag, really.”
Burke Knows Her Harsh Comments Affected Ziering Deeply
Burke also mentioned that she knows her comments had a huge impact on Ziering. She said she is aware of a conversation about the whole situation between Ziering and Dancing With The Stars pro, Tony Dovolani.
“He was explaining to Tony how hurt he was and he didn’t understand because he thought we were good,” she said.
In her book, Dancing Lessons: How I Found Passion and Potential on the Dance Floor and in Life, Burke talks positively about being partners with Ziering. But now she says she truly regrets her harsh comments from the interview.
“I even wrote great things about Ian Ziering in the book I wrote a long time ago,” she said. “It must’ve come out of left field for him a little bit… I lost a lot of respect for myself when I said that. It haunts me till this day.”
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Burke participated in 23 seasons of Dancing With The Stars and won the coveted mirror ball trophy twice.
