Pro Dancer Cheryl Burke Gives Her Opinion About the New ‘Dancing With the Stars’ Host

Cheryl Burke has been on Dancing With the Stars for nearly two dozen seasons, and she recently revealed that, despite comments from fans, she’s loving Tyra Banks’s performance as host of the show.

In an interview with Us Weekly, Burke opened up about Tyra Banks and how she was feeling about the change in hosting on DWTS. 

“It’s really refreshing, I think, to see her just basically call herself out from certain things,” she told the outlet. “When that happened with the missed results – whatever happened – she handled it pretty well.”

Burke was referring to week three of the competition when Banks announced the wrong couples as safe from the bottom two and elimination but later had to call Monica Aldama and Val back to the stage as one of the bottom two couples.

“She’s like, ‘Guys, this is live television, it is what it is,’ and she’s very real. She’s not just like reading a teleprompter,” Burke shared.

Burke Says She Believes Banks Tries to Bring the Cast ‘Closer Together’

Since she first stepped out into the ballroom as host of Dancing With the Stars, viewers have been critical of Banks as the host. Many have expressed that they miss long-time hosts Tom Bergeron and Erin Andrews.

One specific aspect of Banks’s performance that Burke enjoys is that she tries to bring the cast closer together since they can’t be close physically due to the coronavirus pandemic.

“As much as she can without us being so close, at a distance, she’s really trying to interact as much as possible,” Burke told Us Weekly. “I think she’s great. She really is. And I look forward to seeing what she’s wearing every week!”

In a new interview with Extra, DWTS judge Derek Hough said that Banks handled the elimination error from production the right way and that production was actually very happy with the way she conducted herself during the live show.

“You know, The producers came up afterwards and were actually thanking Tyra,” he shared. “They were like, ‘Thank you so much,’ like, ‘you handled that so well.’ There was a technical situation happening in the booth.”

Viewers Have Been Critical of Banks’s Performance

Banks has been criticized for more than just the week 3 mess-up. Many fans have criticized her outfits, and others were upset when they believe she appeared to take attention away from contestant Jeannie Mai after Mai told an emotional story about her family’s past.

Banks has not let the criticism get to her, however. She has stood up for herself multiple times over the course of the season, pointing to the fact that she’s on live TV and it’s not always easy. She said that people make mistakes, so they should expect her to make some too, which adds a sense of reality to the TV program.

“Every host messes up,” Banks told Us Weekly earlier this month. “It’s just normal. It’s live TV. If it wasn’t live, there would be no mess-ups. Even on America’s Next Top Model, I would mess up and tell my editors to leave it in. That’s what makes things human and makes things live.”

Banks later added that she knows she could just read words from a teleprompter and deliver a “perfect” performance, but she chooses not to do so since messing up once in a while is “better than being like a doll.”

Dancing With the Stars airs at 8 p.m./7 p.m. central on Monday nights on ABC.

‘Dancing With the Stars’ Fans Say Tyra Banks Takes Attention Away From Dancer