Brooke Burke on why she ‘hoped’ she and Derek Hough ‘would’ve had a love affair’ on ‘DWTS’

Things heated up on the dance floor in more ways than one for Brooke Burke when she and Derek Hough competed on “Dancing With the Stars.”

Burke, 52, admitted she “was crushing on Derek, for sure” during her time with the pro dancer on the seventh season of ABC’s dancing competition show in 2008.

She revealed her past crush on Hough, 38, during a recent episode of Cheryl Burke’s “Sex, Lies, and Spray Tans” iHeartRadio podcast.

“Had I not been married … I actually hoped we would have had a love affair,” she said.

“I don’t think I’ve ever said that,” Burke added.

The wellness influencer opened up about the intense experience of rehearsing for the show, saying that after months of dancing nonstop with Hough, it was only understandable she would develop a crush.

“You are intertwined with someone’s body. … 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,” she said.

“For three months, you are in someone’s arms,” she added. “Why do you think people fall in love? You smell them, you feel them, you’re breathing them.”

She added that in her view, dancing “can be more intimate than making love in a bedroom.”

“You’re making love on a dance floor, if you’re really connected,” she said. “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 did you go through an experience with someone where they’re all you’ve got?”

It sounds like Burke kept her feelings for Hough private at the time. Still, their chemistry as dancers was palpable by the end of the competition, which ended with them taking home the Mirrorball Trophy.

That said, Burke shared that when she and Hough first began working together, they were not connected — to the point where they consulted a life coach to get more in sync with each other.

In a scene that never ended up being aired on the show, Burke said the life coach told them to change their mindset.

“‘You guys are not in this to win it,’” Burke recalled the life coach saying.

“So she said to us ... ‘You’re both here, and you’re committed to being here. You might as well get in it to win it,’” Burke added.

After consulting the life coach, Burke said she and Hough bonded in a new way.

“I swear we had a meeting of the minds and we made a commitment and promised to meet each other with honesty and compassion, and then we decided to win,” she said.

“We weren’t behaving like teammates so as soon as we changed our mindset — as soon as we got in it to win it and as soon as we met each other with honesty, something magical happened and we found faith, I think, in each other.”

Burke also shared that her time in the competition in general had a positive effect on her relationship with her husband at the time, singer David Charvet. The two wed in 2011 and finalized their divorce in 2020.

“It was great for my marriage,” she said.

“I was exhausted at night, but David really knew how to show up,” Burke continued. “My family really took over to pick up the slack in raising each other. David was really supportive, and he also is a bit of a performer so he understood the pressure.”

This article was originally published on TODAY.com