'Dancing with the Stars' Cheryl Burke: My least favorite partner was Ian Ziering, he "made me want to slit my wrists"

Dancing with the Stars' longtime pro Cheryl Burke has revealed Ian Ziering was her "least favorite partner" on the show of all time and bashed his personality in the process.


Burke, 31, joined Dancing with the Stars for its second season and left the ABC reality competition series after Season 19. While recently talking with Matt Weiss and Theon Von on their "Allegedly" podcast, Burke bashed Ziering, her fourth-season DWTS partner with whom she competed back in early 2007.

"The fact that his name is not EE-AN and it's [pronounced] EYE-AN makes me want to throw up," Burke said on the podcast of the former 90210 star.

Ziering was her "least favorite partner" in 18 seasons. When the "Allegedly" hosts pointed out Ziering was "very intense" when he competed on The Celebrity Apprentice, Burke noted, "That's the true colors that they didn't show on Dancing with the Stars."

Burke continued, "Think of spending time with that for like 8-10 hours a day, seven days a week, for three months. It made me want to slit my wrists."


Burke's experience was apparently so bad with Ziering, 52, that she begged Dancing with the Stars producers to cut their time on the season short.

"I was like crying to executives. I was like, 'Is there any way to please just eliminate us?' They're like, 'We can't. We can't do that.' And I swear, every time I asked, we just kept going. We would last till the end," she said.

Burke and Ziering weren't eliminated until the semi-finals, and at the time, Burke told the cameras their finish was "well deserved."

Shortly after Burke conducted this interview, the pro dancer received backlash on social media for her insensitive and offensive "slit my wrists" comment. She therefore posted a lengthy apology on Twitter.

"I've always lived by the rule that if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all. Recently and regrettably, I broke that rule. In the heat of an interview conversation, I used a phrase that seemingly makes light of suicide and I deeply regret it," she tweeted Sunday.


"I have many friends and family members that struggle with depression and thoughts of suicide. To have said something that seemingly makes a mockery of what they've gone through and what they live with is something that I apologize for. I never meant to hurt anyone or to trivialize the topic. I was out of line and for that I apologize."






About The Author: Elizabeth Kwiatkowski