Days after her elimination on Dancing With the Stars season 17, Elizabeth Berkley Lauren is sad to have been voted off so close to the finale.

Berkley and her pro partner Val Chmerkovskiy was eliminated on Monday night's episode of Dancing With the Stars, visibly shocking the studio audience. Berkley had received a perfect score of 30 out of 30 for her trio dance with Chmerkovskiy and special guest Gleb Savchenko earlier in the evening, but it wasn't enough to save her from elimination.

"[I'm] sad! I'm not going to lie," she told Us Weekly this week. "It's like that saying -- don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened. I'm going to live with that. I felt a little sucker-punch[ed] because I was excited about next week, and I just feel like we got cut short a little bit . . . Not that I felt entitled by any means, but I just felt excited and grateful."

Frontrunner Voted Off on Dancing With the Stars [VIDEO] 

Berkley grew close with Chmerkovskiy over the course of the season, crediting him and Dancing With the Stars for renewing her interest in dance.

"The gift of the love affair I have with dance has returned. This isn't sad, it's just a very deep thing [Chmerkovskiy] helped me reconnect to and I'm forever grateful," she explained. "It's like a full circle love affair."

Berkley was arguably considered a favorite to win this season of Dancing With the Stars, consistently receiving some of the best scores from the judges. However, the public did not give her enough votes to stay in the competition, rewarding less inclined but more popular celebrities like Bill Engvall and Leah Remini instead.

Four Celebrities to Compete in Finale Week of DWTS? 

Dancing With the Stars airs its next episode Monday, Nov. 18 at 8 p.m. on ABC, in which the final five celebrities will compete for a spot in the finals.

Watch Berkley's final dance on Dancing With the Stars below:

Tags: Dancing with the Stars Dancing With the Stars Season 17 elizabeth berkley