Sharna Burgess Speaks Out on Her Exit From 'Dancing With the Stars' This Season

From Good Housekeeping

On Wednesday's episode of Good Morning America, the season 28 Dancing With the Stars cast was introduced and immediately caused an uproar. While most of the clamor revolved around Former Press Secretary Sean Spicer joining the ABC dancing show, some fans were more upset that one of the most notable pros (and winner of last year's Mirrorball Trophy), Sharna Burgess wasn't going to be competing.

After the cast announcements were made, Sharna took to Instagram to confirm that, indeed, she would not be coming back for the next DWTS season. Sharna had been a part of the DWTS franchise for almost nine years, becoming a pro in season 16.

She wrote alongside a photo of Bobby: "I am unbelievably sad to not be back!!! However, what i can whole heartedly tell you is that It’s all good, ALL love and in this moment I can’t help but be grateful for the time and the journey that I’ve had, the people I’ve met, the incredible talent I’ve shared the stage with and the memories I’ve made."

"I am going to truly miss creating, story telling and performing for you all, I’ll miss giving the transformative power of dance to the person in front of me, and I’ll miss seeing my Dwts family every day and watching them work their craft in ways that inspire me."

Not surprisingly, her fans were pretty upset when hearing the news.

Besides Sharna, it appears Artem Chigvintsev will also not be returning after joining as a pro in season 19.

Okay, so why is Sharna Burgess leaving Dancing With the Stars?

While Sharna hasn't straight-up said why she's walking away from the show, her Instagram post did hint that "there are things coming into my world that I’m excited to dive into now that I have time." That makes us think she has a few secret projects up her sleeves.

Sharna has been serving as a judge on Dancing With the Stars Australia and spent this summer performing in the musical The Storm in New York City. Perhaps now that she won't be on season 28, she'll be focusing on performing in more musicals and continue judging the competition series in Australia.

With that being said though, Sharna did kind of make it seem like the decision to leave DWTS may have not been her own. On her Instagram post announcing her departure, she wrote, "everything happens for a reason."

What's more, DWTS host Tom Bergeron told Entertainment Tonight that Sharna seemed "surprised" when he spoke to her recently. "As a matter of fact, I was just texting with Sharna recently. She was surprised and I was, too. But again, that's somebody else's call."

Another possible explanation for Sharna's exit could've been that she was not happy about the "formatting tweaks" that the new season will bring. ABC Entertainment president Karey Burke told Deadline in early August that the producers were still working on switching things up a bit, including making a tweak to how the couples' scores are calculated.

“The producers were just in last week talking about the casting and the creative evolution," she said. "It’s all very exciting. It won’t be major format changes, just tweaking and tinkering."

As fans of the show can recall, Bobby and Sharna's win last season was a controversial one. Even though they received low scores from judges Len Goodman, Bruno Tonioli, and Carrie Ann Inaba, they still won the show thanks to fan votes.

Bottom line, no matter what happened or why she's leaving, we sure are going to miss seeing Sharna salsa, meringue, and cha-cha on the dance floor this year. But who knows, maybe, just maybe, we'll see her again in season 29.

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