Brooke Burke admitted she was tempted to have a romantic fling with partner Derek Hough during their time on “Dancing with the Stars.”
“Had I not been married … I would have actually hoped we would have had a love affair,” she told fellow “DWTS” alum Cheryl Burke during Sunday’s episode of the “Sex, Lies, and Spray Tans” podcast.
Brooke, who was married to ex-husband David Charvet during her winning 2008 appearance on the show, explained her attraction to the then-23-year-old Hough.
“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.
The entrepreneur, 52, recalled the pair rehearsing and performing in close proximity every day for three months.
“So for three months, you are in someone’s arms. Why do you think people fall in love?” Brooke explained.
“It can be more intimate than making love in a bedroom — you’re making love on a dance floor, you feel more connected. 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?”
Brooke confessed that all that intimacy led her to start “crushing” on Hough — even though they initially struggled to connect as partners.
“He was really tough, he was really hard on me. I’m OK with tough love. He did not love me through routines and support me and tell me that it was amazing. He was brutally honest,” she said.
A rep for Hough did not immediately respond to Pvnew’s request for comment.
As for Hough’s personal life, the current “DWTS” judge, 38, tied the knot with fellow dancer and longtime love Hayley Erbert in August.
The newlyweds exchanged vows in front of 160 guests during a romantic ceremony in Monterey County, Calif.
The couple had dated for over seven years before saying “I do.”
