Winner says comments about having an affair were misinterpreted and taken too seriously.

Brooke Burke, the former Dancing With The Stars winner, has slammed suggestions she wanted to have an affair with her professional partner Derek Hough.

The TV presenter, now 52, was paired with Derek, now 38, back in 2008 for the seventh season of the American reality series, and went on to take out the win.

Recently, Brooke reminisced on her time on the show during an appearance on former DWTS pro Cheryl Burke's Sex Lies and Spray Tans podcast, saying she and Derek originally weren't ‘gelling’ before they won the Mirrorball Trophy. With the help of couples therapy, however, she wound up ‘crushing on Derek’.

“Had I not been married [to actor David Charvet], I would have actually hoped we would have had a love affair,” she said. “But listen, let me tell you why: You are intertwined with someone’s body when you’re not 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. And it’s every single day. So for three months, you are in someone’s arms. Why do you think people fall in love? You smell them, you feel them, you’re breathing with them. It can be more intimate than making love in a bedroom - you’re making love on a dance floor, you feel more connected.”

Her comments understandably got a lot of attention, but Brooke has now said she was not implying she would have actually had an affair. “It was a very honest conversation within boundaries, and I think the misconception is the difference between sexuality and sensuality,” she explained. “What Derek and I experienced was a romantic story on the dance floor, right? And I think crushing on someone in that moment is a very human experience. I think romance is required for the chemistry of that show.”

Brooke went on to say she was ‘surprised to [see] headline after headline after headline’, but she was not ‘really that worried about it’ due to her ‘monogamous, faithful marriage’. She added it was all ‘totally blown out of proportion’.

The TV presenter still considers Derek a lifelong friend, but they don't contact each other much anymore because they both lead ‘very busy’ lives. Derek recently married fellow pro dancer Hayley Erbert two months ago.

Do you think Dancing With The Stars can fuel real-life romances? Comment Now.

[This article has been trending online recently and has been generated with AI. Your feed is customized.]