‘Dancing With the Stars‘ professional Cheryl Burke has revealed that her childhood trauma may have impacted her outlook on love.
Dancing With the Stars: Cheryl Burke Recalls How Being A Victim Of Childhood Molestation Shaped Her Outlook On The Meaning Of Love
The star had the experience of seeing her parents get divorced when she was just 2-years-old. This was on the basis that her father had allegedly been with another woman.
While her mother would go on to date once again, with Cheryl going on to describe her stepfather as amazing, the very fact of the matter is that things did not go smoothly.
It turns out that the stepfather decided to hire someone to babysit Cheryl when she was just 5-years-old. The babysitter in question happened to be a family friend, and yet, what he ended up doing was traumatic indeed. The babysitter would go on to molest Burke.
And by the looks of it, that has left a negative impact on her which still plays out to this day. In her comments, Cheryl said: “He was grooming me. And he was my definition of love.
“This is what love equaled, right? Seeing my father’s infidelity, being abused by this old, retired mailman — I didn’t really know what a healthy relationship is or was. There wasn’t a stable father figure in my life.”
While the babysitter would get arrested, it did influence the relationships Cheryl entered into moving forward. She previously spoke about how she was in an abusive relationship during her high school years.
She ended up being with someone for four years during which he had apparently whipped her. Things were so bad that this had occurred in the presence of the man’s parents, as they stood by and did nothing.
But through it all, Cheryl admitted that dancing saved her as it allowed her the chance to put those emotions into something positive. And that can only be a good thing after everything she has been through.
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