Sharna Burgess is opening up about navigating a “rocky” partnership on Dancing with the Stars.
On the first episode of her new podcast — which she co-hosts with her boyfriend Brian Austin Green and Randy Spelling — Burgess, 38, reflected on her journey after becoming a pro on the ABC dance competition in 2013.
“My win with Bobby was I think the most explosive and controversial of Dancing with the Stars history and I got caught up in this whirlwind of hate for that win which was really yucky,” she said, referring to her season 27 win with TV personality Bobby Bones.
She admitted that she was in “this space of self-blame” when she was not asked back the following season. After working through her struggles during the hiatus from the show, Burgess returned to the ballroom for season 29 and was partnered with actor Jesse Metcalfe until they were eliminated in week four of the competition.
“They had me back the following season and I had a partner that was really difficult — and not say too much because I don’t want to,” she said. “I wasn’t able to be in the room alone with him after the first couple of weeks because of things that happened.”
She added, “That was rocky and we were eliminated very quickly.”
In a statement, Metcalfe’s rep said: “There is really no story here. Jesse is a gentleman and prefers to take the high road.”
Elsewhere during the episode, Burgess looked back on inadvertently putting her relationship with Green in the spotlight when he was her partner for season 30 of DWTS.
“The same executive producer who’s no longer there, I did not love what he did with the show,” she said. “Hearing from people around that, they were genuinely trying to just have this spotlight on our relationship. Not his neurological stuff, not his experience, not our working through this together, but to almost say our relationship was the issue with the dancing in some way.”
She continued, “I did text someone at that time and was like, ‘Hey this isn’t what we signed up for. If this is what you want for us, you just have to eliminate us because we can’t do this.’ And we were quickly eliminated after that.”
Dancing with the Stars season 32 premieres Tuesday, Sept. 26 at 8 p.m. ET on ABC and will stream on Disney+ and Hulu.
