Former Dancing With the Stars pro dancer Cheryl Burke is recalling a frightening experience from her time on the ABC reality competition: She feared for her life when protesters rushed the stage during Season 23, when she was paired with controversial Olympic swimmer Ryan Lochte.
“When I danced with him, he had just [done] the Olympics,” Burke said in the October 2 episode of the I Do, Part 2 podcast. “We also had protesters that came on to the dance floor, and we thought they had guns and they were gonna blow our heads off. It was insanity. Like, during the live show. I’ve never seen our security guard — shout out to David — tackle somebody so quickly.”
In case you missed it, Lochte claimed he and three other swimmers were robbed at gunpoint by men with police badges at a gas station during the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, according to the Associated Press. But surveillance footage showed the athletes confronting security guards at the station, and Lochte admitted he was intoxicated at the time.
Lochte was charged with filing a false robbery report — though a Brazilian court eventually dismissed that case — and he was suspended from the United States national swim team for 10 months, the AP added.
But the controversy reached the DWTS dance floor in 2016, when two protesters with anti-Lochte T-shirts rushed the stage as Lochte and Burke got feedback from the judges. The protesters were detained by show security, arrested by the Los Angeles Police Department, and ordered to stay away from Lochte, per ABC News. Lochte went on to place seventh in the competition.
Despite the Lochtegate scandal, Burke had a positive impression of the swimmer, as she said on the podcast. “At first, I was like, oh great, I’m getting another controversial figure, and … is this guy just gonna be lazy? No! He worked so hard, and he is so vulnerable, and he just trusted me in the process, and, for me, that’s the best dance partner ever. I don’t care what your dance ability is. If I like you as a person, I’m going to invest also so much into you.”
Dancing With the Stars, Season 34, Tuesdays, 8/7c, ABC and Disney+