Cheryl Burke claims “Bachelorette” producers told her Chris Harrison didn’t want her to star on “The Bachelorette” because she was a “sloppy drunk.”
“I heard you blocked that. Did you not?” Burke pointedly asked Harrison on Monday’s episode of his podcast, “The Most Dramatic Podcast Ever.”
Harrison appeared stunned and denied that was true before asking, “They put that on me?”
“Yeah, like I have that much power. Like I have the power to decide who the Bachelor, Bachelorette is,” Harrison sarcastically said.
The “Dancing With the Stars” alum doubled down that she was “not kidding” and the producers “blamed it on you absolutely.”
“That’s funny,” Harrison said.
Later on in the podcast, the former ABC personalities were talking about how Burke is over five years sober when the topic of her being axed as the lead came up again.
“So they told me that you said the reason why, they said that I didn’t get to do ‘The Bachelorette’ because Chris Harrison said that you’re a sloppy drunk,” Burke, 39, claimed.
Harrison, 52, once again called that allegation “funny,” because he never decided who the lead of the show was.
“You know what’s great and what’s beautiful? They, in public, would never give me that power to decide who the Bachelor, Bachelorette,” he said.
The former “Bachelor” and “Bachelorette” host recalled that some of the producers would occasionally ask what he thought of potential leads, but “there’s a lot of Bachelors and Bachelorettes that I didn’t think [should be the lead].”
ABC didn’t immediately return Pvnew’s request for comment.
Burke previously expressed interest in starring on the popular ABC dating show before she was married to, and later divorced, Matthew Lawrence.
“My dating record hasn’t been great the past couple of years so if I have a chance to go on, I will,” Burke told People in 2012. “I’m getting old, you know, so it’s something of interest to me.”
Burke added that it “would be fun to have a pool of guys around you” and it’d be “easier for me to meet someone to date.”
Unfortunately, Burke never appeared on any of “The Bachelor” spin-offs and eventually got married to Lawrence in May 2019. Burke filed for divorce just three years later, and the divorce was finalized in September 2022.
Burke has since shared she’s “happily single” while Lawrence has moved on with TLC singer Chilli.
