Cheryl Burke and Gilles Marini Address ‘DWTS’ Chemistry: ‘Everyone Thinks I Definitely Jumped Your Bones’
Cheryl Burke‘s Dancing With the Stars confessions keep on coming.
On the heels of her admitting to having showmances with three of her celebrity partners while working on ABC’s ballroom competition show, the 39-year-old performer has set the record straight about what went down with partner Gilles Marini.
While chatting with the Sex and the City movie alum himself — the married runner-up she was paired with for season 8 — on her podcast, Sex, Lies, and Spray Tans, the two addressed their dance floor chemistry and whether it ever carried over into real life.
“We had that thing without having that thing,” Marini said.
Added Burke, “Chemistry.”
“Everyone thinks I definitely jumped your bones,” she acknowledged, “and it’s just not the case.”
If there was any lingering doubt, Burke made matters crystal clear. “Nothing has ever happened physically between us. We were very close, intimate, like in that sense, like, we were great friends. We went through our ups and downs,” Burke said. “We definitely had chemistry… You can’t teach that. You either have it with someone or you don’t, and it was hot.”
Instead, Marini wanted to be a supportive friend. As Burke faced public criticism over her weight gain at the time, he defended Burke, publicly stating something along the lines of “If every woman looks like Cheryl Burke, that’d be fine.” However, he also faced backlash over the comment.
“I just wanted you to be at peace,” he said on the podcast, noting it was a turbulent time for her.
While sparks did not actually fly between Burke and Marini, she recently admitted on Amy Robach and T.J. Holmes’ podcast, Amy & T.J., to having showmances with three other celebrity partners in the course of her time working on the show, but only named Chad Ochocinco Johnson as one of them.
The performer shared that she and one of her partners even tried to make their romance serious, but it did not work out. “Lust,” she said. “It’s not love, right?”
While Burke is currently single following her 2022 divorce from her husband of less than three years, Matthew Lawrence, she has not ruled out tying the knot again.
“I totally would get married again,” she told ET in 2023. “I mean, I know we should probably go from like meeting somebody first, not like straight to the altar, but our time is limited on this planet.”
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