Tom Bergeron lastly shared extra particulars about his stunning and sudden exit from “Dancing With the Stars” in 2020.
Throughout an look on Cheryl Burke’s “Intercourse, Lies and Spray Tans” podcast Thursday, Bergeron defined why he was fired from the present after 15 years, saying all of it got here all the way down to a controversial casting selection.
Based on the longtime host, in the course of the summer time of 2019, he and serval showrunners received collectively to debate potential contestants for the upcoming season.
The season could be airing earlier than a contentious election 12 months, so Bergeron tried to persuade the execs to steer away from casting anybody with political affiliations as a way to give viewers a “great escape from all of the divisiveness for 2 hours per week.”
He claimed all of them agreed to that, however only a few weeks later, Bergeron received a “cellphone name from the showrunner and one other producer,” who ran down the checklist of “who was going to be on the present” — together with ex-White Home Press Secretary Sean Spicer.
“And this former showrunner says to me, ‘You would possibly need to sit down for this final one.’ I mentioned ‘Why?’ After which they instructed me who it was … the previous press man for Trump,” he mentioned.
The information got here as a whole shock to Bergeron, who slammed the execs for doing the “precise factor” they promised to not.
“I used to be livid,” he mirrored. “At one level I even mentioned, ‘How about I take this season off?’ And so they mentioned, ‘Nicely should you do that we are going to allow you to out of your contract in order for you.’ That’s how strongly they felt.”
“And that basically pissed me off,” he continued.
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Regardless of making an attempt to “be Switzerland,” Bergeron mentioned his “mood kicked in” and he determined to “let folks know that they f—king lied” to him.
In retaliation, Bergeron issued a assertion critiquing producers for thrusting politics into viewers’ faces within the midst of an already “exhausting political local weather.”
“So I wrote the assertion that I wrote, that didn’t title anyone, that didn’t title a political social gathering,” he continued. “It merely mentioned, ‘I used to be instructed sure issues once I was requested my opinion, they agreed, and now they’ve thrown a curveball.’”
Whereas “DWTS” showrunners weren’t pleased in regards to the publish, Bergeron mentioned many viewers have been equally “outraged” and his cellphone instantly started “blowing up.”
“So at that second, I knew [that was] most likely my final season, due to that one betrayal,” he defined. “As a result of I had been lied to by individuals who have been in cost … up till that time, there have been folks of character there.”
Bergeron admitted that he didn’t inform producers earlier than talking out in regards to the casting course of, however insists that “they didn’t should know.”
“They’d screwed me. I’m gonna screw them.”
“However I needed the viewers to know this was a step too far to me. This was a step too far on the cusp of an election 12 months. And once more — had it been a Democrat, identical assertion.”
Regardless of nonetheless internet hosting the season alongside Erin Andrews, Bergeron introduced in July 2020 that he was “knowledgeable @DancingABC shall be persevering with with out me.”
ABC additionally confirmed on the time that Andrews — who Bergeron says “had his again” throughout the entire ordeal — would additionally not be returning.
Only one week later, the present introduced that Tyra Banks could be taking up as host.
But when requested about Bergeron and Andrews’ departure in October 2020, “DWTS” govt producer Andrew Llinares boiled it all the way down to the truth that the present wanted “to proceed to evolve.”
“I feel altering the host was all about evolution, it was about making the present really feel recent, making it really feel new [and] sort of make it attain out — perhaps to a brand new viewers as nicely, in addition to the viewers that’s been there for years,” he mentioned throughout ABC’s VirtuFall panel.
Then in March 2022, Bergeron cheekily responded to information that Llinares — who joined the ABC franchise in 2018 — was stepping down.
When requested for his ideas on Twitter, Bergeron responded, “Karma’s a b–ch,” together with a wink face emoji.
