Cheryl Burke has been sharing her painful story with the public while fighting to beat an alcohol addiction.
This week, the professional dancer sat down with Jada Pinkett Smith and her mother, Adrienne Banfield-Norris, on Red Table Talk, where she revealed a horrific moment she lived through.
The model and television host shared that while in high school, she dated a teenage boy for about four years. She confessed that her then-boyfriend invited her to his home, where a disturbing event occurred.
The Dancing with the Stars pro said that her ex-boyfriend pulled out his belt and whipped her.
To add insult to injury, the young man’s parents witnessed the painful scene and chose not to help her.
Cheryl Burke said: “In high school — I’ll never forget — the person I was with on and off for about four years whipped me with a belt.”
She added: “And I had bruises all over my legs, and I remember his parents were watching it — didn’t do anything.”
The choreographer clarified to the horrified women, “And it wasn’t like he was hitting me; he was whipping me.”
Cheryl Burke spoke at length about her struggles with alcohol. She said that her late father was an alcohol addict, and he died in 2018, which pushed her to get help.
Burke previously said in an episode of her Burke in the Game podcast: “My father passed away [in March 2018], and my dad was an alcoholic. So either I was gonna crash and burn and check myself into rehab, or I was gonna just quit cold turkey.”
She explained that she drank to numb the pain and added: “I used alcohol to numb. I’m an addict. I was a functioning addict. It was when I wasn’t drinking that people were like, ‘What’s wrong with you?’
She has been sober for four years now, but the journey has not been easy, and her recent public divorce from her husband, Matthew Lawrence, made things a bit more complicated.
She stated: “It’s not easy right now, especially during this divorce. It’s waving at me. I didn’t want this. My parents got divorced, and I would’ve loved to not have, so that wasn’t the plan. I’m not proud of it, for sure. But then there’s also a point where I need to put myself first and my sobriety first.”
Many fans have reached out to let Burke know that they are rooting for her.
