'Dancing With the Stars' 2016: Cheryl Burke Came Very Close To Not Auditioning For ABC Series [VIDEO]
Cheryl Burke almost never became who she is today if she hadn't made one particular choice.
Burke appeared on Oprah: Where Are They Now recently where she discussed how she got involved with Dancing With the Stars back in 2006. While she would eventually become one of the better pro dancers to ever compete on the show, she actually came close to never auditioning for DWTS at all, as she said in her Oprah interview.
The dancer had been performing with her boyfriend at the time, Jose DeCamps, when she got the call to audition for Dancing With the Stars. Burke had requested that DeCamps come along too, but producers apparently weren't interested.
"I said, 'How about Jose, my partner?'" Burke recalled. "They're like, 'You really don't need him.'"
While Burke noted that she and DeCamps were "on the rocks" in their relationship, she still had some reservations about heading to Los Angeles considering the life they had together in New York.
"I said, 'Would you mind if I do this?'" she said, asking DeCamps at the time. "He was just like, 'Go ahead and go. Whatever. Just go.'"
The performer noted that things would have been completely different if he pleaded for her to stay with him.
"If he would have said, 'No, please stay,' I would have not gone and done 'Dancing with the Stars,'" she admitted. "So, everything does happen for a reason."
Burke immediately proved herself on the show, winning her first two seasons back-to-back, with Drew Lachey and Emmitt Smith, respectively. While she would not win again in her long DWTS career, she placed in the finals several times, with Cristián de la Fuente in season 6, Gilles Marini in season 8, Rob Kardashian in season 13, William Levy in season 14 and Jack Osbourne in season 17.
She was most recently paired with Olympic swimmer Ryan Lochte, with whom she placed seventh.
