Cheryl Burke Recalls Trauma of Testifying Against Her Childhood Abuser

When Cheryl Burke aged 9, she testified in court against a carer who sexually abused her and her stepsister.

The first Dancing With The Stars pro recalls the traumatic experience on Monday, January 20’s episode of the Old-ish a podcast.

“We were both sexually molested by the same person, the carer who was looking after us,” said 40-year-old Burke. “And then my sister’s best friend ran home and told her mother. That’s the reason why he was sentenced – it was supposed to be life imprisonment, but he got out.”

During his trial, “I was almost lighting myself up already,” he continued. “I’ll never forget it when I was actually testifying with this man sitting in front of me. They wouldn’t even let my mum come with me, which was so mad. I was 9. And I was thinking to myself, ‘Am I doing this s— up?’ I was literally saying this to myself.”

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Burke added: “I already felt, at the age of 9, that I was the pedophile. That’s how they made me feel.”

He explained during his Old-ish she appears to be a “professional dissociator” as a result of her past trauma, which she is trying to make peace with.

“There’s no, ‘OK, I’m done with that part of my life,'” Burke said. “But I’ve done so much work where I couldn’t handle the anger I had towards this one person that I felt like I was slowly dying, so there had to be some kind of peace going on. They don’t condone the act by any means, but I had to create some kind of, like, ‘OK, this man was sick.'”

However, he noted, “I do not forgive. I don’t want people to take this the wrong way, like I forgive him for molesting.”

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Burke has previously spoken about the abuse he suffered as a child, first in 2015 and later when discussing how the ordeal was affect her relationship with men as an adult.

She thinks that, moving forward, it will become more difficult for other victims to speak out against their abusers.

“It’s society today, man,” Burke said Old-ishadding, “Why would anyone ever want to come out and tell their truth when the person who is suffering feels like they are doing something wrong? And it’s so easy to fire someone with all this statute of limitations. It’s all bull – because it takes decades, if not, to finally realize or have some sort of awareness, ‘Yes, maybe I was raped.’”

He added: “There were no quick fixes to this. There is nothing. And I don’t even want that to come across by any means. There is no medicine. There are no deposits. Trust me, I’ve tried it all. And it comes back tenfold unless you do the work, and boy does it hurt. It is painful. This work is painful.”

If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, contact the National Sexual Assault Helpline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673).