Matthew Lawrence shared what it’s prefer to cope with a wedding breakdown within the public eye following his well-publicized break up from ex-wife Cheryl Burke.
The actor, 45, addressed his divorce in an interview with Each day Mail printed on Thursday, January 1, after being requested what it was prefer to kind a bond along with his new accomplice, Chilli (actual title Rozonda Thomas). The previous couple married in 2019 earlier than Burke filed for divorce in 2022.
“That’s one of many fascinating issues about while you select to be in a profession like that is that your non-public life is public, so it’s important to reside these issues out on a public stage,” he advised the outlet. “And I don’t suppose that’s actually enjoyable for anyone, you understand?”
Lawrence, who has largely remained comparatively tight-lipped about his separation from Burke over time, added that it was tough to cope with different individuals’s variations of what went fallacious in his marriage.
“Particularly while you don’t actually have management of the narrative or if the narrative isn’t even true, you form of simply should say, ‘Properly, I’m going to have to simply go on with my life and proceed to reside the life I wish to reside. And the folks that I care about know what’s actual and what’s not,’” he continued. “And, you simply should develop thick pores and skin and proceed on.”
Former Dancing With the Stars professional Burke, 41, has been candid about her ideas on her divorce from Lawrence prior to now. Talking on the “I Do, Half 2” podcast in October 2025, Burke admitted she was nonetheless “grieving” the connection breakdown, which occurred across the similar time she exited DWTS after 26 seasons.
“It wasn’t simply the divorce with my ex. It was the divorce with Dancing with the Stars multi function yr, after which leaving my residence I lived in for 16 years and I moved to the place I’m right now,” Burke defined. “So it’s like, it’s simply, it was all occurring in a single yr, and people are three huge life modifications. They are saying, in the event you hit 5 in a single yr, you’re most definitely going to verify into the closest psychological establishment.”

Matthew Lawrence and Cheryl Burke. (Photograph by Steve Granitz/WireImage)
Burke added, “To say that I haven’t or nonetheless typically grieve can be a lie too. I feel it may be each, you understand? I do know that I wanted to chop off mainly each divorces to ensure that me to have the ability to see what I see within the mirror and really just like the individual I see.”
In October 2024, Burke additionally claimed on a unique episode of the identical podcast that monetary points had negatively impacted their marriage. She puzzled aloud whether or not Lawrence felt “emasculated” by incomes lower than she did.
“I knew what I used to be marrying. I knew what I used to be moving into financially,” Burke stated on the time. “I’m not going to talk for him. I’m not right here to dangerous mouth him in any respect. However I imagine that there’s this gender function.”
She continued: “A person might really feel a bit emasculated when he doesn’t make the vast majority of the cash. I feel which will have taken a toll.”
For his half, the Mrs. Doubtfire star moved on with Chilli, and the couple at the moment are happier than ever since they had been first romantically linked in late 2022.
“I wouldn’t have been prepared for this sort of relationship in my early 20s. No manner,” Lawrence completely advised Us Weekly of his romance with Chilli on December 19.
He added that even in his 30s, he nonetheless won’t have been prepared for his or her kind of affection that he and the TLC singer share. However now, the timing was excellent.
“I feel I might have undoubtedly responded the identical manner, however I don’t know if I might have had the maturity or the expertise of understanding what the opposite aspect is like, in order that I might respect [it] as a lot as I do,” he defined to Us.


