Charity Lawson recalls 'damaging' experience on 'DWTS,' 'much worse' than 'Bachelorette'

Charity Lawson is coming forward about her "damaging" experience as a Black woman competing on "Dancing With the Stars."

The Season 20 "Bachelorette" lead shared on former "DWTS" pro Cheryl Burke's "Sex, Lies and Spray Tans" podcast episode Monday that she "went through hell and back with my mental health" while on Season 32 of the dancing competition show.

Lawson, who came in fourth place with professional dance partner Artem Chigvintsev, said she was being relentlessly bullied by fans and was not protected by network executives.

Burke remarked that she found that shocking, to which the child and family therapist responded, "Is it shocking? I don't know if it's shocking. I think to a certain degree it was expected."

Lawson explained that coming from the backlash she got on "The Bachelor" and "The Bachelorette," she thought "DWTS" would "be a piece of cake" – but it ended up being "so much worse."

USA TODAY has reached out to reps for "DWTS."

"I was getting death threats for existing … for not performing enough, for being conceited, for being entitled," Lawson recalled. "It was so damaging, night in, night out."

The former "DWTS" contestant added that while she "blocked and filtered" damaging comments on her Instagram page, the show's official account did not, even after Chigvintsev brought up the issue to executives.

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Lawson began to cry as she recalled her experience, sharing that she decided to now speak out to highlight "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."

"There were weeks where I'd come home from rehearsal where I'm like, 'I literally hope I forget my steps and get voted off.' … It's a really dark place," she recalled.

The family therapist added that the way her video packages were edited did not help with likeability amongst voters.

"It's shaped this way that I was boasting and bragging about my scores but I'm only talking about them because you guys asked me," Lawson said. "That was really frustrating when I started to see my packages painted in this way. It's almost skewing the viewers in this way of, 'All she cares about are scores' (and) ‘She thinks she's better than everyone.'"

Burke concluded by asking Lawson whether she thought her race impacted her outcome on "DWTS," to which she simply responded, "Yeah."

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Charity Lawson says 'DWTS' bullying was 'worse' than 'Bachelorette'