Cheryl Burke Slams Paparazzi, Talks Maks-Karina Breakup and Awful Relationships

On Cheryl Burke's first year with 'Dancing With the Stars,' she and partner Drew Lachey took home the mirror ball trophy. In that moment, America had discovered a new dancing queen and have adored her ever since. It turns out she's the only professional dancer to appear four times in the finals. However, bubbly Burke's private life has not been festooned with feathers and sequins. She has battled with her confidence and body issues, been involved in abusive relationships and was sexually molested as a child. She talks about all of it in her memoir, 'Dancing Lessons,' and spoke with PopEater about how being assaulted "ruined my self-esteem and confidence" for many years, and she gives her honest take on prying paparazzi.

"I think there's some really nice ones out there," she says. "But I do hate the ones that make it difficult for me, the ones that have criticized my weight, the ones who have called me a party girl and have made my parents worry about me."
Was it hard writing this book?
I just figured if I was going to write a book I needed to tell my story, and there was no way of going around it because what I dealt with is what my story is all about. And I feel like dancing has really shaped who I am today, and I feel like what I've gone through with dancing, it's helped me get through the dark stages of my life.

You never wanted to be on TV.
As a little girl when I started dancing at 4, it was never to be on TV, it was just for the pure love of dancing. I was in New York with my dance partner and things weren't going well between us, we were also romantically involved and that didn't help and things were going downhill. At the time the show was trying to recruit more dancers to be on the show, and they approached me. I'm very shy, and I was terrified to talk on camera. In the beginning I couldn't even put a complete sentence together, but I just thought, you know what? Why not just try it because things aren't working out for me in New York anyway and might as well try and start a new life, and that's how it happened.

You started going to clubs, and you were painted as a party girl.
I was shocked. I never experienced the life I guess you would normally when you're 18, 19, 20. I was just dancing, and that's all I cared about. I never drank a sip of alcohol in my life and then finally it hits and I'm not in a relationship, I go to LA, I'm by myself, and I'm forced to communicate and meet new people and make friends, and I'm having a good time. And what's wrong with that? It's what any other 21-year-old would do, except I had people following me.

Does that mean you can't stand the paparazzi?
Well, I love the nice ones. I think there's some really nice ones out there, but I do hate the ones that make it difficult for me, the ones that have criticized my weight, the ones who have called me a party girl and have made my parents worry about me. It's like I don't think they realize what they are really doing to someone's self-esteem and also to someone's family.



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