Charity Lawson Says She Got Death Threats During DWTS, Was In 'Dark Place' from Bullying

Dropping by former DWTS pro dancer Cheryl Burke's latest Sex, Lies and Spray Tans podcast, Lawson said that speaking as a family therapist ... Dancing with the Stars should really have a therapist on the set, adding she was "surprised" to find out there wasn't one available.

"I'm very surprised because quite literally, while Dancing With the Stars was great, I literally went through hell and back with my mental health on that show," Lawson told Burke. "It hit me like a ton of bricks."

The show is one of the most demanding in reality television, with celebrities partnered with professional dancers and then committed to hours and hours of training to prepare one or more new dances each week. And some stars do this while maintaining their regular work schedules!

Lawson also alleged that she endured online bullying during her time on the show, which surprised Burke.

"Is it shocking? I don't know if it’s shocking. I think to a certain degree it was expected," Lawson countered. At the same time, she was expecting a nicer audience reaction on the popular dancing show than what she had already been subjected to by Bachelor Nation fans.

"I came into the Dancing With the Stars fanbase like, 'This is going to be a piece of cake,' only to be -- almost to the point where it was so much worse than Bachelor and Bachelorette," she said.

"I was getting death threats for existing," Lawson continued, "for not performing enough, for being conceited, for being entitled, for being the biggest bitch on the cast. It's crazy!"

In part, Lawson believed it had to do with some of the video packages, where she appeared to be "boasting and bragging about my scores," with the reality star arguing, "I'm only talking about them because [producers] asked me."

"That was really frustrating when I started to see my packages painted in this way," Lawson lamented. "it’s almost skewing the viewers in this way of, 'All she cares about are scores,' 'She thinks she's better than everyone.'"

Lawson said hateful comments hit her social media pages, as well as the official DWTS pages, leading her to go to her professional partner, Artem Chigvintsev, who went to bat for her with show producers. Lawson claimed that while she blocked and filtered her own pages, no one did so on the official show's pages. TooFab has reached out to producers for comment.

"I had to tell Artem, 'This is unfortunately what we're dealing with and what we're up against,'" she added. "If you look in comparison to every other contestant on this season, they don't have this underneath their comments … I'm just literally existing and being called a bitch."

Getting emotional in her discussion with Burke, Lawson said she felt compelled to speak out so others can understand "the difference that I have to go through this life as a Black woman and being on a reality TV show. It's like the same things are just not protected."

Lawson said things got so bleak within her own mental health, she started hoping she'd "forget my steps and get voted off." She told Burke, "It's a really dark place."

When Burke asked Lawson if she thought her race impacted her placing on the show for her season, Lawson replied simply, "Yeah."

Lawson came in fourth place in Season 32. She made it to the finale, where she beat Alyson Hannigan, but fell short of Ariana Madix in third, Jason Mraz' second-place finish, and winner Xochitl Gomez.

Season 33 of Dancing with the Stars kicks off Tuesday, September 17 at 8 p.m. ET on ABC, Disney+, and Hulu.