Brooke Burke Admits She Was Tempted to Have ‘Affair’ With Derek Hough During ‘DWTS’

Brooke Burke is speaking openly about “crushing on” Dancing With the Stars partner Derek Hough while they were competing together back in 2008. The 52-year-old television revealed the new episode of Cheryl Burke’s Sex, Lies and Spray Tans podcast that she would have wanted to have a “love affair” with Hough if she hadn’t been married to actor David Charvet at the time.

“I just thought [Derek] was so young and green and safe,” Brooke explained to Cheryl on the podcast. “I had no idea he would be such a powerful, badass choreographer.” While the two originally had problems “gelling,” entering couples therapy together as dance partners to work out their issues eventually led to the fitness pro admittedly “crushing on Derek.”

“Had I not been married, I would have actually hoped we would have had a love affair,” said Brooke, who split from Charvet in 2018 before finalizing their divorce in 2020. “You are intertwined with someone’s body when you’re 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,” she said, adding that “for three months, you are in someone’s arms. Why do you think people fall in love?”

“It can be more intimate than making love in a bedroom – you’re making love on a dance floor, you feel more connected,” Brooke continued. “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?” Hough, meanwhile, was “really tough” as a teacher and choreographer. “I’m OK with tough love. He did not love me through routines and support me, and tell me that it was amazing,” Brooke explained. “He was brutally honest.”

Surprisingly enough, Brooke and Hough’s path to the Mirrorball Trophy ended up being a huge benefit for her marriage to Charvet. “It was great on my marriage,” Brooke explained. “I was exhausted at night but David really knew how to show up. My family really took over to pick up the slack in raising each other. David was really supportive and he is also a bit of a performer so he understood the pressure.”