Cheryl Burke is a famous American professional ballroom dancer who is known for her role of professional dancer and choreographer of ABC’s Dancing With the Stars.
Her net worth has been evaluated to be somewhere around $450 thousand.
Early Life
She was born in San Francisco, California to her parents Stephen Burke and Sherri Bautista on May 3rd, 1984. Cheryl hails from a dance-loving family. She is of mixed ancestry including Filipino, Irish and Russian. Burke grew up in Atherton, California which is commonly called the bay area. From the age of 6, Cheryl began taking dance lessons.
Burke started with ballet lessons, but her heart wasn’t really into it. After accompanying her mother to a ballroom competition when she was 10 years old, Cheryl found her one true drive and love for ballroom dancing. After that incident, her mother registered her for ballroom dancing lessons. Her main focus during her training was the standard dance and the Latin styles.
By reaching the age of 13, Cheryl was the star performer with the highest scores in ballroom dancing competitions all over the world. Shef has won various awards and accolades for her precision and beautiful ballroom dancing, the honors include, World Cup Professional Rising Star Latin Champion, San Francisco Open Latin Champion and Ohio Star Ball Rising Star Champion.
Apart from being very focused and dedicated to her dancing career, Burke also squeezed in her regular educations and graduated, in 2002, from Menlo-Atherton High School.
Career
Apart from her strong career in worldwide ballroom dancing competitions, Cheryl Burke also attained the limelight as one of the professional dancers on ABC’s Dancing With The Stars (DWTS). She was also the first female dancer to have won the show and also maintained a winning streak of two times in a row. She has taken part in 19 seasons of DWTS. The first time she won the show was DWTS second season with Drew Lachey (98 Degrees). Next, she won the third season with the football star, Emmitt Smith.
Burke, the pro dancer, also came second in various editions of Dancing With the Stars with celebrities like Gilles Marini and Rob Kardashian. She has also bagged the third place with the likes of Cristian de la Fuente and William Levy. Her schedule during DWTS is very hectic as she herself practices for a stretch of 8-10 hours daily, along with that, she has to plan the dance routine, the steps, and everything.
Apart from her prominent role in Dancing With the Stars, Cheryl Burke also made a guest appearance on Disney Channel’s, popular series, The Suite Life of Zack & Cody, in the ‘Loosely Ballroom’ episode. She played the role of a nurse who was attending the cast members during a dance contest segment at The Tipton Hotel.
She came second on ‘I Can Do That’ season one, she lost to Nicole Scherzinger during the final trio act after being on top for the chart from week 2. As per the sources, she will join the Dance Moms team in 2017 as a replacement for Abby Lee Miller.
Here is a list of all the celebrities that Cheryl Burke has partnered with during the various Dancing With the Stars editions.
- Drew Lachey – Singer from 98 Degrees
- Emmitt Smith- Professional footballer
- Wayne Newton- Las Vegas performer
- Maurice Greene- Olympic star
- Ian Ziering- Beverly Hills 90210
- Cristian de la Fuente- Actor
- Gilles Marini- Actor
- Tom DeLay- Former House Majority
- Rick Fox- actor and pro basketball player
- Chad Javon Johnson- American football player
- Chris Jericho- Wrestler
- Rob Kardashian- Reality star
- William Levy- Model and Actor
- L. Hughley- comedian and commentator
In her successful career as a professional ballroom dancer, Cheryl Burke has won many awards which includes World Cup Professional Rising Star Latin Champion (2005), Ohio Star Ball Rising Star Latin Champion (2005), San Francisco Latin Champion (2005), Prime Time Emmy (2006) for Outstanding Choreography, two-time Dancing with the Stars champion in a row with – Drew Lachey (Season 2), Emmitt Smith (Season 3).
She has also won various championships in the UK. In 2007, Cheryl Burk won Role Model Award at the 7th Annual Filipino/American Library Gala. And on Asian Excellence Awards, 2008 she was awarded the Viewer’s Choice Award for being the Favourite Television Personality.
Personal Life
In 2011, Cheryl Burke gave us her first book, Dancing Lessons, her autobiography where she described an incident where she was molested by a handy-worker at the age of 5. The molester, on facing the charges was sentenced a jail time for 22 years and was finally released in 2008. The artist keeping in mind her assault is a spokesperson on account of child sexual abuse. She has been an advocate against molestation and sexual assaults. She is linked with CARE House of Oakland County; this is one of the charities she is linked with that strives to provide programmes for prevention of sexual abuse and therapy to the abused.
In 2006, she helped in raising money for educational programs in the schools like International School of the Peninsula in Palo Alto, CA and Menlo School. For the fundraiser event, she organized a special one-hour dance workshop at her home which garnered around $31,000. She was also involved in Dress for Success in association with Depend Silhouette where she raised a grand amount which was donated for women empowerment. Cheryl Burke is very keen on giving back the society; she uses her celebrity status to support numerous altruistic causes.
As of media attention of recent times, Cheryl Burke is dating Matthew Lawrence. The pair first met back in 2006 when Lawrence’s brother was a part of Dancing With the Stars cast. Lawrence and Cheryl Burke started their romantic journey from 2007.
Quick Summary
Name: Cheryl Burke
Date of Birth: May 3rd, 1984
Birth Place: San Francisco, California
Age: 33 years
Profession: Dancer, Actor
Height: 1.63 m
Weight: 58 kg
Net worth: $450 thousand
