Sharna Burgess hits back at 'showmance' critics over Brian Austin Green relationship

Sharna Burgess has defended her relationship with Brian Austin Green and blasted critics describing their intimacy as a “showmance”.

The pro dancer – who went Instagram official with her ‘Beverly Hills 90210’ actor boyfriend Brian in January – has faced backlash over them being paired together on the show.

Alongside photos of them rehearsing on Instagram, she wrote: “For those that say we kiss too much, here’s a full [butt] grab instead. For real though, we kissed once in the first show that’s it.

“This isn’t a showmance, this is real life love and it’s a part of our journey. Every step. Every struggle. Every success.”

The 36-year-old star – who has served as a professional dancer on the programme since 2013 – also explained how dancing with her boyfriend is far from an easy thing to do and shrugged off the suggested she had some kind of “advantage”.

She added: “And anyone that thinks it’s an advantage I can assure you, it’s not. ITS SUPER HARD!

“We both wanted to push harder this week because we really want those scores to keep us in the competition, but in the process we had a few moments of feeling hyper sensitive toward each other and struggled to find a happy positive work flow.

“Coaching your boyfriend is hard, and having your girlfriend be the one to tell you all the s*** you’re doing wrong is also hard.”

Her comments comes after the pair gained a respectable score of 19 – with just three judges giving their ratings with Derek Hough missing the show – after dancing the Tango to the Britney Spears hit ‘Till the World Ends’ on a night honouring the pop princess.

Other performances included Spice Girls star Melanie C doing a Tango of her own to ‘Toxic’ with partner Gleb Savchenko, and YouTuber JoJo Siwa and Jenna Johnson dancing the Argentine Tango to ‘…Baby One More Time’.