Biography of Cheryl Burke
Cheryl Stephanie Bautista Burke was born on May 3, 1984 in San Francisco, California, U.S., is a professional dancer. She is best known for being one of the professional dancers on ABC’s Dancing with the Stars, where she was the first professional woman to win the show and the first person to win twice consecutively.
Burke grew up in Atherton, California. Her father is of Irish and Russian descent and her mother is Filipina. Her family dances for recreation and has a dance floor at home. At age four, she began taking ballet lessons and performing locally. She then began ballroom dancing and decided to change her focus. She trained in both standard ballroom and Latin dances. She began competing at age 13. Cheryl attended Menlo-Atherton High School, graduated in 2002. In fall of 2007 Cheryl was awarded the key to the city from the mayor of Atherton at her old high school.
Burke won her first championship with 98 Degrees member Drew Lachey in the second season. She won her second championship with retired football star Emmitt Smith in the third season.
Cheryl returned to the ballroom on March 19, 2007 for Season 4, partnered with actor Ian Ziering. She and Ziering were eliminated in the semi-finals on May 15, 2007.
Cheryl Burke participated in a 38-city Dancing with the Stars tour from December 19, 2006 to February 11, 2007. She also joined the second summer tour, which visited 24 cities between June 20, 2007 in Austin, Texas and July 24, 2007 in Vancouver, Canada. Her celebrity partner for both tours was Drew Lachey.
Burke competed on Season 5. Her partner was Las Vegas entertainer Wayne Newton. They were the third couple eliminated from the competition on October 9, 2007.
Burke participated with both Lachey & Newton in the Dancing with the Stars winter tour that kicked off December 18, 2007 in Seattle, Washington. The tour wrapped in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on February 10, 2008.
Cheryl competed on Season 6 and was partnered with actor Cristián de la Fuente. They trained at Palm Beach, Florida’s “Paramount Ballroom,” which is owned by former U.S. Nine-Dance Champion Alec Lazo. They made it to the finals and on May 20, 2008, Cheryl and Cristián placed 3rd in the Season 6 competition.
The dancer returned to the show for Season 7 with partner Maurice Greene. They were eliminated in Week 8 on November 11, 2008 and came in 5th place.
She returned to the show’s eighth season, in which she was paired with actor Gilles Marini. They were the runners-up for the season, losing to Shawn Johnson and Mark Ballas.
On August 17, 2009, it was announced that Burke would compete on the ninth season of Dancing with the Stars with partner Tom DeLay (former U.S. House of Representatives Majority Leader). On October 6, 2009, Cheryl and DeLay withdrew from the competition because DeLay had stress fractures in both feet.
In season ten she was partnered with Chad Ochocinco. They were eliminated in the semi-finals and came in fourth place.
Rick Fox was partnered with Burke in the show’s eleventh season. They were voted off in the seventh week of the competition and came in 6th place.
For the twelfth Season, she was partnered with wrestler Chris Jericho. They were voted off in the sixth week of the competition.
In the thirteenth season, Cheryl Burke was partnered with reality star Rob Kardashian. They came in second place, losing to J.R. Martinez & Karina Smirnoff. Although they came in second place, Cheryl said, “We’re winners in my book,” on the last night of season 13.
In Season Fourteen, Cheryl Burke is partnered with actor William Levy.