While spending time at home with her 3-month-old son Zane that she shares with boyfriend Brian Austin Green, the DWTS pro has completed the last step in her journey to U.S. citizenship. “Today something really amazing happened,” Burgess, 37, wrote in an Instagram post showing snaps from her naturalization ceremony. “I had no idea that this would feel emotional for me. “This has been my home for nearly 12 years now. My son was born here, my life and love and career.. all here. And yet this last step of becoming a citizen and finally having the same rights as all Americans felt so important,” the season 27 Mirrorball winner (with dance partner Bobby Bones) said in the post. Burgess went on to explain that she’s lived outside her home country of Australia since she was 18 and “so much of that was out of a suitcase and from one country to another. “At one point my belongings were just in garbage bags since it was easier to move,” she said. “I’ve never even had to vote anywhere before. I think I always felt a bit like a Gypsy searching for belonging. Afraid of staying in one place and also craving the security of it. But then, America slowly became my permanent home.” Burgess says she’s finally found her “tribe” in America and during 15 seasons on Dancing with the Stars, where she danced with boyfriend Brian Austin Green. “I bought a home here, I fell in love here, I birthed my son here. Now this final step is the period at the end I never knew I was needing so much. This very long chapter of finding belonging has finally come to a close. I Sharna Burgess, am a citizen of The United States of America, and I belong here.”
