Washington D.C. [US], October 10 (ANI): American TV personality Brooke Burke opened up about how her victorious 2008 ‘Dancing with the Stars’ partnership with Derek Hough went from strained to “magical”, reported People.
Burke, 52, discussed her experience with Hough, 38, on the latest episode of fellow DWTS alum Cheryl Burke’s podcast ‘Sex, Lies and Spray Tans’.
According to People, when the pair first met, Brooke told Cheryl, 39, that “I just thought [Derek] was so young and green and safe. I had no idea he would be such a powerful, badass choreographer.” Brooke acknowledges that she developed a “crush on Derek” throughout the course of the season, in large part as a result of a session of “valuable” couples counselling that the producers organised while the partners weren’t “gelling.”
At the time, the presenter was married to actor David Charvet (from whom she eventually split in 2018), but she told Cheryl, “had I not been married… I would have actually hoped we would have had a love affair.”
As Brooke admitted, “I don’t think I’ve ever said that,” Cheryl revealed that, at the time, Hough was also gushing behind the scenes about “how hot” his partner was.
“I would have had an affair with him,” Brooke reiterated, adding, “But listen, let me tell you why: You are intertwined with someone’s body when you’re not a dancer. There is no way that I have ever been so connected — besides with a lover or a husband — than I was with Derek. And it’s every single day. So for three months, you are in someone’s arms. Why do you think people fall in love? You smell them, you feel them, you’re breathing with them. It can be more intimate than making love in a bedroom — you’re making love on a dance floor, you feel more connected. If you have energy, you’re doing this dance and you’re in the rhythm, and then there’s trust, then you’re sharing fear, you’re doing something you’ve never done. How many times do you go through an experience with someone where they’re all you’ve got?”
She concluded by saying that she had only ever encountered one such individual outside of a ballroom. Life-changing.”
But before Hough–who is currently newlywed to another former DWTS pro Hayley Erbert–established his passionate on-screen connection with Brooke, the pair had a difficult time settling into their partnership.
(“”He was really tough, he was really hard on me. I’m OK with tough love. He did not love me through routines and support me and tell me that it was amazing. He was brutally honest,” she said, acknowledging that eventually that tack made her “better.”)
Seeing the discord, even her then-husband encouraged her to get closer: “David was like, ‘You need to go and talk to Derek, you need to get out of your funk, you need to go connect before a performance.’ Because we were completely disconnected. We were in our own world, and yet we were a partnership, we were a team … [but] we weren’t behaving like teammates, “reported People.
Among the “issues off camera and in rehearsals,” she explained that Hough, then just 23, “was exhausted, he was recording an album at night. I had a 3-month-old baby. I was fried — up all night, training all day … so my body was, like, depleted. I was also hormonal.”
She explained, “I was a woman and a mother. I felt like he was a young man. We just, we weren’t meeting each other in a place that was serving us. So we went to this life coach therapy session. And I was surprised that it never aired because I thought it was super real and super valuable.”
According to Brooke, the advice she and her partner were given was: “You have to meet each other with honesty.” For Brooke, that meant, “She wanted me to be able to say, ‘I’m exhausted, I don’t have the energy to be here, my baby was crying all night, my family misses me, I’m f—ing scared, I don’t know this routine, you’re being mean, I’m not OK!’ Because when you’re honest with someone … there’s something amazing that happens when you meet someone with truth and honesty, reported People. (ANI)
