Inside Cheryl Burke And Matthew Lawrence's Split

After nearly three years of marriage, Cheryl Burke and Matthew Lawrence are splitting up. TMZ reported Burke delivering divorce papers to a Los Angeles courthouse with a date of separation for the couple marked as January 7, 2022. As for the official reason, Burke is citing irreconcilable differences.

The match was originally made in 2006 when Matthew's brother, Joey Lawrence, was a contestant on "Dancing with the Stars," according to People. The pair hit it off on tour and the "Boy Meets World" star took notice of how short Burke was without her dancing shoes as they loaded onto the bus. Matthew recalled to Yahoo! Life, "I'll never forget it actually ... I just saw this little head popping out from the crowd and I was like, 'Who is that?' I was captivated." The feeling was mutual and the long, yet disrupted, road to a healthy happy relationship was laid out. 

Since 2020, Burke has posted a variety of videos to her YouTube channel, including a few watch-and-react videos with her husband. They've watched their wedding and honeymoon together, and reacted to a Caribbean holiday they took. This gave fans a little bit of insight into their relationship, but recently, the host has shifted content focus to mental health and pursuing creativity — perhaps a sign for even bigger changes on the horizon.

Matthew Lawrence and Cheryl Burke began dating shortly after meeting, but split up the following year. Burke told People in 2019, "There was an attraction right away. But we were both really young." On an episode of the "Pretty Messed Up" podcast, Lawrence tied the breakup to Burke's drinking habits, explaining, "After about a year, it just kept getting worse ... It was now [4 a.m., 5 a.m.] she was coming home. It was just too much, and so I ended it."

Taking some time to grow up seemed to be the trick as the "Mrs. Doubtfire" star and Burke got back together in 2017. According to Burke on the reunion, "It felt like the [time passed] didn't happen. I just felt so comfortable." The couple announced their engagement in 2018. Lawrence shared with E! News about when he knew he wanted to marry Burke. "I think I was just really impressed with the woman she had become ... She had done a lot of work on herself, she had really grown in some amazing ways and I was just really taken aback by it." 

As more time has passed, perhaps the relationship has simply run its course. All is fairly quiet about the "irreconcilable differences" for now, but fans are hoping for the best, whether that means the two are together or apart. 

Prenups aren't as taboo as they used to be, which is why more couples are signing them before saying "I do," per Business Insider. Indeed, Leanna Johannes, senior wealth strategist at PNC Wealth Management, explained to BI, "Millennials have been on their own, accumulated some wealth ... and they want to make sure that the property remains theirs if there are problems down the road."

It seems as if Cheryl Burke and Matthew Lawrence felt the same way, which is surely why the pair signed a prenup, according to Us Weekly. So what exactly will that legal agreement be protecting? While it likely addresses whatever homes they might own and their other potential property, it probably means that both individuals will be keeping their fortunes untouched.

For Burke, that means she'll walk away with $450,000, which is what she's banking, according to Celebrity Net Worth. Lawrence, on the other hand, has quite a bit more, with $2 million. While money certainly isn't everything, at least that's one thing that this now-former couple doesn't have to worry about while they focus on moving on. Of course, the couple's fans may not be able to do the same without some time to deal with the split.

Celebrity couples who are willing to share aspects of their relationships with the public often end up taking their fans along on the seemingly fairy tale-like ride as their romance progresses. However, along with the highs, there are also lows that those same fans witness when things go wrong. They also tend to have strong reactions to those tough times — and that's definitely the case with Cheryl Burke and Matthew Lawrence's split.

"I am really bummed that Cheryl Burke and Matthew Lawrence are splitting," one clearly disappointed fan tweeted after news of the impending divorce broke. Another social media user hopped onto Twitter to share a similar sentiment, writing, "Sad to hear."

Of course, not everyone was surprised, with one person sharing a seemingly sarcastic "shock[ed]" gif of Lawrence's older brother Joey saying "whoa," his famous catchphrase from the sitcom "Blossom." Another wrote, "No surprise there. When you break up the first time, the signs are all there that it's not meant to be. She (and perhaps he) went on to have other relationships. How do you reunite after that?" Whether or not that factored into the stars' issues, their relationship obviously wasn't meant to have a "happily ever after" kind of ending.