The good and the bad. After a decade-long pause, Cheryl Burke and Matthew Lawrence rekindled their romance in 2017, but five years later, they split for good.
The Dancing With the Stars pro and the Boy Meets World alum began dating in 2007, before going their separate ways a year later. The couple reconnected in February 2017 and quickly started planning their future together.
“We really want to do it right. We want to do the steps of being engaged, moving in together, getting married and having kids,” Burke exclusively told Us Weekly in October 2017. “I’m not getting any younger. We want kids and all of that, so we’ll see what happens.”
Six months later, Lawrence told Us what the key to making their relationship work, saying, “We’re really good friends and that’s where it all starts.”
The Brotherly Love alum added: “I think we have really good companionship and I think we just built from there. That’s the most important thing. We can actually hang out. When we go away together, we really enjoy it. When it’s just the two of us, it’s the best.”
The Mrs. Doubtfire actor asked Burke to marry him a month later, in May 2018, with the same diamond her late father, Steve Burke, gave to her mother.
Burke, who chose to become sober shortly after getting engaged, said that Lawrence has been her “rock” amid her sobriety journey. “I don’t know where I would be without him,” she said on an October 2020 episode of Good Morning America.
She later reflected on her relationship with the Jumping Ship actor in a December 2020 YouTube video. The dancer noted that her history of “dating abusive men” stopped when she met Lawrence, whom she married in May 2019.
“Looking back, I honestly think that the first relationship I ever had that did not fit this abusive pattern was when my now-husband, Matt, and I dated the first time around back in 2007,” Burke admitted. “I honestly think at the time when we first dated, I didn’t clearly love myself enough to think that I deserved to be with someone who was actually nice to me.”
She added that Lawrence is the “complete opposite of everything bad about my past relationships” and she is “so grateful and happy” that the universe brought them back together.
Us Weekly confirmed in February 2022 that Burke filed for divorce after nearly three years of marriage. The professional dancer listed their date of separation as one month prior, according to court documents.
Scroll down to relive the highs and lows of Burke and Lawrence’s relationship over the years.