‘DWTS’ Pro Sharna Burgess Recalls Smoking Meth as a Teen and the Moment of Clarity That Changed Her Life

Sharna Burgess is getting candid about how much the art of dance changed — and even saved — her life.

The Dancing With the Stars alum opened up about her past struggles with drug abuse, and how she turned her life around, during a recent episode of her podcast, Oldish, which she co-hosts with fiancé Brian Austin Green and Randy Spelling.

The 38-year-old professional dancer recalled how she’d been smoking meth occasionally as a teenager growing up in Australia, and the stark moment of clarity that helped her realize she wanted to take a different path through life.

“I was 17 years old… and this was at the end of probably being awake for three days, and we were sitting out in the backyard of someone’s house and a crack pipe was being passed around with meth in it,” Burgess shared. “I had been smoking meth now for a little while, not every day but on and off.”

“At that time it was a party drug, and I was pretty much partying three to four days a week,” she continued, explaining that, in that moment, she had a vision, of sorts.

“I was sitting there watching this pipe passed around, and the universe — God, whoever you call it — gave me this moment, and I saw everyone,” she shared. “I saw everybody sitting opposite me with complete clarity of what my future looked like.”

“Here I was at 17 years old, watching 20-somethings, and maybe even 30-somethings, passing around this crack pipe, just waiting to get a little bit more out of it,” she recalled. “I realized that I had come from being an Australian champion ballroom dancer — I represented my country at the World Championships, I was an athlete, the best in the country at the time — and because of a knee injury, I fell off.”

“I realized how far I’d fell and how much I needed to get back to that person,” Burgess said. “That this was not what I was meant for. And that was where it all changed for me.”

Burgess said that she felt lucky in the moment because she knew exactly what she could and should channel her energy and focus into, which was dancing.

“I was so thankful because the ‘what now?’ was dance for me,” she said. “I knew I needed to get back into that, and thankfully I had that to guide me through.”

By the time Burgess was 18, she moved to London and began to perform on the U.K. dance show Simply Ballroom. She later joined Dancing With the Stars as a troupe member during season 13, and was promoted to a DWTS pro in season 16 in 2013.

This candid episode of Oldish comes just a week after the episode in which she and Green revealed that they’d gotten engaged — which actually happened back in July.

ET’s Cassie DiLaura spoke with Burgess and Green over the weekend at the iHeartRadio Music Festival in Las Vegas, and they opened up about the role their kids played in the moment.

According to Green, the kids were all “super excited” about the engagement.

“They were part of the proposal,” Burgess said. “It was really beautiful.”

Green and Burgess share a 1-year-old son, Zane. Meanwhile, Green is dad to sons Noah, 10, Bodhi, 9, and Journey, 7, whom he shares with ex-wife Megan Fox. Green also has a 21-year-old son, Kassius, from his relationship with Vanessa Marcil.

As they explained on their podcast, Green popped the question during a surprise party Burgess had thrown for him for his 50th birthday back in July. Green learned about the birthday and knew Burgess wouldn’t be expecting a proposal at an event she thought he didn’t even know was happening.

“The kids come in with him,” Burgess recalled on their podcast when sharing the news. “Noah is holding Zane, and Journey is holding this little red Cartier box. And they all come in there and they stand next to Brian, and he takes the box from Journey, and he says, ‘Would you spend the rest of your life with us?’ I was just looking at him like, ‘I can’t believe this is really happening.'”

As Burgess told ET on Friday, “I think all of us were emotional about it. I think, honestly, Noah was the most emotional. [But] everyone was just so excited.”

“Honestly, everyone was waiting for this moment for, I think, a while, and it was finally happening,” she shared. “It was definitely an emotional moment for me, and to share it with, you know, my favorite people, it just feels so perfect and right.”

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