Former Dancing With the Stars host Brooke Burke won’t be making a return to the ballroom for the show’s 20th birthday special after her 2014 exit.
Burke, 54, explained why she won’t be attending the highly anticipated event during the Tuesday, November 4, episode of Jennie Garth’s “I Choose Me” podcast.
“A redo is hard for me,” Burke told fellow former contestant Garth, 53. “I guess there’s some things that are worth a repeat in your life, but I feel like I wrung it out and I did everything I needed to do on that show.”
Burke added that despite the “amazing relationships” she formed during her time on DWTS as both a competitor and as cohost, she ultimately feels her time on the series is behind her. “It was one of the most watched shows on television. It would be hard to go back there with the same level of excitement and appreciation,” she said.
Garth, for her part, joked that she also “got an email” about the special — which airs November 11 — that she “purposely did not read.”
Burke and Garth were both paired with former pro Derek Hough — now a judge on the show — during their respective seasons. Garth landed in fourth place on season 5 in 2007, Hough’s first season, while Burke and Hough took home the mirrorball two seasons later. Burke later hosted the show with Tom Bergeron from seasons 10 through 17.
“I never say no, never closed doors professionally, but I mean, it was eight seasons, and I did everything I needed to do in the ballroom,” Burke continued, adding that she “had so much fun” on DWTS even though it was “one of the hardest things I’ve ever done in my entire life.”
This isn’t the first time Burke has addressed her exit from DWTS. She opened up about being let go from the show during a 2024 episode of Getting Grilled With Curtis Stone, revealing that while she was “ready to do other things” at the time, it was “disappointing” to find out she wasn’t being asked back.
“But I think it’s shocking when there’s a change in our business, just to humanize it, to be honest, to be vulnerable,” she added. “I think it was really disappointing. I wasn’t expecting it.”
As for why she was “let go,” Burke said there were a “number of reasons on both sides.”
Burke detailed how she found out she wouldn’t be returning for season 18 on her Modern Mom blog shortly after the news broke in 2014.
“The only shocking thing about it, for me, was the way in which it all went down,” she wrote, claiming she found out “just weeks” before the premiere. “I would have appreciated a heads-up and the courtesy of communication, but we are not always privileged to get that in the workplace.”
She also shared how difficult it was to tell her kids, who didn’t understand the difference between being let go and being fired. (Burke shares kids Neriah, 24, Sierra, 22, Heaven, 18, and Shaya, 16, with exes Garth Fisher and David Charet.)
“My son shouted, ‘You got fired, Mommy?!’” she remembered son Shaya asking her. “I tried to explain the difference between being fired and being let go. Then he yelled, ‘You quit!’ I laughed at the fine line in it all. Then I did my very best to describe to my children the reality of change and the need to maneuver through it with grace.”
Burke is not the only DWTS cohost to be asked to exit the ballroom over the years. Audiences were shocked when original emcee Bergeron announced in July 2020 that he and then-cohost Erin Andrews would not be returning for season 29.
“Just informed @DancingABC will be continuing without me,” Bergeron wrote via X at the time. “It’s been an incredible 15-year run and the most unexpected gift of my career. I’m grateful for that and for the lifelong friendships made. That said, now what am I supposed to do with all of these glitter masks?”
He later appeared on an October 2023 episode of Cheryl Burke’s “Sex, Lies and Spray Tans” podcast to discuss his exit, claiming his desire to keep politics out of the ballroom was partially to blame. (Bergeron was previously vocal about Sean Spicer’s casting on season 28.)
“I’m sure they’ll give you a different reason [as for why I was fired],” he added, noting that he would “never” return as host. “It’s not the same show. It’s not the same world. There’s no point. What would I prove? … Let the show either exist with the fresh blood that it has now or die a natural death.”
Dancing With the Stars’ 20th Birthday Special airs on ABC and Disney+ Tuesday, November 11, at 8 p.m. ET. It will be available to stream next day on Hulu.
