ET's own Jann Carl is getting personal with "Dancing with the Stars" pro Cheryl Burke. The dancing queen has come under scrutiny due to her recent weight gain, and now she is speaking out against the negative comments.
"I've always had bigger hips; I've always had a butt, and I always will. It's just genetics," she admits. "That's how I was born and that's just the way I am going to be."
The celeb dancer tells Jann that internet bloggers first started scrutinizing her weight over the summer after she was photographed in a bikini while vacationing with her family. At first, Cheryl says, the bloggers were just noting her weight gain, but eventually name calling began and the tabloids started calling her fat. Cheryl reveals that the insults snowballed so outrageously that she was jokingly labeled as four months pregnant. Despite the harsh words, the tiny dancer says she has learned to steel herself and has a positive outlook on her curvaceous, petite frame.
The dancer does admit that sometimes she thinks, "Gosh, I just wish maybe I could be really, really skinny, but there is no way. There is just no way. I just have to love my body."
The two-time dance champ says she's been hurt by the negative comments, but more so she believes that the tabloid negativity about her weight could also be detrimental to her young female fans.
"People look at these tabloids and they have certain people they look up to, and to have people like me being called fat -- what are you going to do when a 16-year-old girl is reading this who may not look like me, who may be a few more pounds heavier," she asks. "What is she going to do? Starve herself? Become skinny? Have an eating disorder? [The tabloids] are not only affecting me but they are affecting millions of other people."
Cheryl also states that she really wants the young girls who see her as a role model to know: "You don't have to be like everybody else to be beautiful."
Check out Cheryl's foxy moves this Monday night on ABC's "Dancing with the Stars."