Sharna Burgess shows disappointment to sit out for 'Dancing with the Stars'

Sharna Burgess will not be present at the 32nd season of Dancing With the Stars as it prepares to make cast announcement on Wednesday.

The professional dancer, 38, spoke candidly about her regret at not being invited to compete in the forthcoming season of the competitive reality show.

Burgess discussed how she temporarily left the series last year after giving birth and fully anticipated returning to it on an episode of her new iHeartRadio show Old-Ish.

“Last season I was supposed to come back but Zane was only eight weeks old… It just felt like I needed to sit in motherhood with Zane,” she said in a conversation with her co-host and husband Brian Austin Green. “It was always, ‘I want to come back next year,’ and ‘Of course, we love you, we’ll always have you.'”

The DWTS pro claims she found out she wouldn't be getting an invite when her co-stars started getting calls to come back and her phone went silent.

“Because it was such a shock, because I wasn’t expecting it, it was tough,” Burgess confessed before referencing the time she wasn’t asked to return for season 27. “It’s not the first time. My last five years on the show have been rocky — not because of the show.”

“I love the show deeply, but we had a new executive producer come in, I think five years ago now. I had just won with Bobby Bones and he decided to not bring me back,” she added. “There’s a lot of speculation as to why.”

In June 2022, Burgess and Green welcomed their son Zane Walker. The couple became partners during season 30 of the dance competition show after getting to know each other through their business manager.

The television celebrity posted a video on Instagram in advance of season 31 in which she defended her choice not to appear on the show.

“I have some news that I have to tell you guys because I keep getting so many DMs about it,” she began the video.

“After long conversations and lots of thinking and really trying to sit with what was right, and many conversations with Deena Katz, who's our casting director but also like a second mom to me, I made the really hard decision to not do this season of Dancing with the Stars. There's been a list that has been released saying that I would be a pro and I won't be.”

“I will be there in some capacity and we're still talking about that,” she noted. “I'm at one hundred percent capacity with my body. I feel fit, I feel strong, I'm so ready to dance. I'm about to go to the gym right now. We're going to talk about what that means and how I can be apart of it.”