Cheryl Burke says she's in 'no rush' to find a partner after years of dating narcissists

Cheryl Burke is taking her time in the dating scene following her 2022 divorce from actor Matthew Lawrence.

On Sept. 19, the former "Dancing with the Stars" professional dancer, 39, told E! News that she's gone through "so many changes" in her life in the past year.

"I think it was from the divorce to leaving the show to a move all in one year,” she said.

“There were two divorces, one was with the show and one was with my ex-husband. I am learning so much about myself and I am also learning that there is no such thing as your own identity being defined by anything outside of you," she continued.

Now single, Burke noted that she has gone on dates, but is not "actively looking" for a partner.

“I have been on dates, yes. Has there been anyone to brag bout? No. I am not in a rush,” she said. “I owe this to myself. You know they say every narcissist you date you owe a year to yourself. I’ve got a lot of years to make up, OK?”

"I’m not even on a dating app — I refuse,” Burke added. “You’re swiping through and the only time you stop swiping is when you think someone looks good, and that is just a-s-backwards for me.”

She continued, “That’s not what I’m looking for. I’m not looking for someone with no personality that’s on my Abercrombie & Fitch shopping bag. I’m not doing that. I am almost 40 years old.”

While Burke isn't in a rush, she wants her and her future partner to "inspire" and "support" one another.

“[Someone] that is his own person and I’m my own individual person but then we come together because we enjoy each other’s company," she added.

As for whether she would date a celebrity again, Burke said she's open to it.

“If they have the qualities I mentioned, I guess (being a celebrity) doesn’t matter because again that’s not your identity,” she said. “That’s not even in the tunnel vision of what I’m looking for.”

Burke noted that she hasn't let her career on "Dancing with the Stars" define who she is as a person.

“The show didn’t identify who I truly am at all. It was a part of me, absolutely, and same thing with my relationships,” she said. “If you do define yourself by the outside world, it is so temporary. And then that’s when you feel the loss, the emptiness, the loneliness.”

In February 2022, Burke filed for divorce from Lawrence after nearly three years of marriage.

In a petition for their dissolution of marriage, she noted that they had been separated since Jan. 7 of that year, and she cited "irreconcilable differences" as the reason they were parting ways.

After they broke up, Lawrence started dating Rozonda “Chilli” Thomas from the hit '90s girl group TLC.

During a March episode of “The Most Dramatic Podcast Ever with Chris Harrison," Burke said she was "not surprised at all" by Lawrence's desire to have kids with Chilli, based on her own previous conversations with Lawrence and his family.

“He comes from a huge family and I think that, especially his mom, there were definitely conversations, but I always had said, ‘As long as I had to shove my body in a dance costume, me thinking about being pregnant probably isn’t something I can talk about at the moment,'" she said.

“But yes, there were discussions of possibly freezing my eggs,” Burke added.

This article was originally published on TODAY.com