Cheryl Burke Calls BS On Abby Lee Miller’s Comments About Her ‘Dance Moms’ Role

Cheryl Burke says her version of Dance Moms will be much different than Abby Lee Miller’s traumatizing turn on the show was. Burke, who has been tapped to replace Miller for the remaining episodes of the seventh season of the Lifetime reality show while the original star serves a jail sentence, told reporters she will use a different teaching style than her polarizing predecessor, and that she plans to put the focus back on the young dancers.

“The girls are so precious and I feel like they’re traumatized from what has happened with Abby and it’s important for me to still be strict and do what I do,” Cheryl said, according to Fox News. “I expect nothing but the best from the girls, but it’s also important for me to make them feel confident about themselves because they’re all beautiful, they’re all talented.”

Burke admitted that her own mom was “the original dance mom.” Cheryl said she plans to put the focus of the show back on the girls.

“My mom was a crazy dance mom herself and the hardest part is to separate yourself,” Cheryl admitted.

“It was important for me if they want to be there, outside, on the couch talking and gossiping, then that’s fine but they can’t just barge into my room. They have to ask for permission. I think that’s kind of what happened with Abby is they butt heads so much that the focus wasn’t on the girls. It was on the moms.”

Cheryl Burke made it clear that she doesn’t agree with Abby’s controversial teaching style, so she opted not to ask the fallen reality star for any advice.

“I ran into her a couple of times before I even knew I was doing the show but I don’t agree with her teaching methods,” Burke said. “I don’t. I mean, I’m strict. I say it how it is as, you’ve seen me on Dancing with the Stars, but I was just being myself and I think within that that caused a lot of drama between the moms and the girls and with me.”

While Burke said she had “no comment about” Miller’s recent one-year jail sentencing for bankruptcy fraud, she dished that “the moms are probably not sad about it.”

Miller previously told E! News she predicted Cheryl Burke would be treated differently than she was by the Dance Moms production team and get a bigger budget for her episodes of the hit Lifetime reality show. Miller added that she would be “thrilled” to see the popular pro dancer “step down to this” and go through what she went through on the Lifetime series every day.

“I think they will treat her differently,” Miller told E! of Burke. “I think everybody will be on their toes. I think that Lifetime will pour a ton of money into advertising because they want to prove that I was nothing and I was nobody and they saved me.”

But Cheryl Burke slammed Abby’s comments about her version of the show.

“That’s BS,” Cheryl said.

“No. There’s no way. I don’t think so. I can’t put the numbers together, obviously, but this was a quick turnaround for them to have me be part of Dance Moms and I think everyone has been treated equally on that show. It really is about getting about the job done. It’s bigger than numbers and budget….you want to do it for the girls. It depends on where your heart is.”

As for her own relationship with the Dance Moms “moms,” Cheryl admitted some of them are overly involved in the process.

“They just get on my nerves sometimes,” Burke said, according to Us Weekly. “They just need to stay in their lane.”

While Cheryl Burke hasn’t reached out to her, Abby Lee Miller told the magazine nobody from the show’s production company has reached out either since her prison sentencing, despite the fact that she made a lot of people “a lot of money over the years.” Miller said she has the support of several of the Dance Moms cast members and many of her off-camera dance students.

Take a look at the video below to see Cheryl Burke talking about her new role on Dance Moms.

[Featured Image by Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images]