Dancing with the Stars delivered a huge change for fans after Season 28 of the hit ABC series, when hosts Tom Bergeron and Erin Andrews were fired and replaced by Tyra Banks. The firings were pretty abrupt, and took a lot of viewers by surprise, as Bergeron was the face of the series, and Andrews spent years as his co-host, and reactions to Banks as host were mixed. Now, Bergeron has gotten honest about the end of his time on the show.
Tom Bergeron joined Bob Saget for Saget’s Here For You podcast, and he opened up about elements of the show (and his exit) that weren’t explicit back when the news broke that he was leaving. He mentioned that his decision to publicly speak up about DWTS casting a political figure didn’t sit well “with the producer or the network.” Although he didn’t name the specific person he was referring to, it’s probably safe to say that he was speaking about former White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer, who was a divisive contestant on Bergeron’s final season of DWTS. Bergeron then explained his feelings about getting fired, saying:
In all candor, the show that I left was not the show that I loved. So at the end of the season that turned out to be my last season, I kinda knew. So I took everything out of my dressing room that I really wanted, because I just felt like it was kind of obvious that we were kind of butting heads. And it wasn’t a pleasant… it was great to have Erin [Andrews] by my side, because she and I just kind of locked arms and did the show. And I would challenge anybody to look at videos of that season and see anything different. I think we were able to maintain that connection with the viewers and keep it uplifting and fun.
Kudos to both Tom Bergeron and Erin Andrews for making sure that the show always went on during their final season, even if they got the sense that the writing was on the wall and they would be cut from the show following Season 28. And honestly, good for Bergeron that he managed to get everything that he wanted to take with him from Dancing with the Stars. He and Andrews weren’t officially fired until months after Season 28 ended.
And Dancing with the Stars quickly made it clear that some big changes were on the way, rather than just replacing Tom Bergeron and Erin Andrews with a pair of new hosts. Tyra Banks, who came into DWTS after hosting America’s Got Talent over on NBC, took the show in some new directions. The format of the show with celebrities partnered with professional dancers before a panel of expert judges stayed the same, but with somebody brand new as the face of the show, it was bound to be different for better or worse.
Tom Bergeron went on, explaining how he was able to keep doing his job with a smile on his face despite knowing that his time on Dancing with the Stars was running out. He told Bob Saget:
Hell, I did a live show hours after finding out my dad died, so I can compartmentalize. So I wasn’t surprised it was my last season. So there was no blue period. Actually I think Erin [Andrews] and I had more fun being fired than virtually anybody. When I found out who they replaced me with, and that that person had the same initials as me, my tweet was ‘Well, I guess I’m not getting back my monogrammed towels.’
It’s nice to see that he approached a bad situation with more humor than a lot of other people might have, and that he and Erin Andrews had each other in the process of getting fired. Tom Bergeron didn’t chime in on his thoughts on Tyra Banks other than referring to the new host as somebody who shared his initials, but he did make it clear in the podcast that he still wants Dancing with the Stars to succeed, as he still has a lot of friends there.
And Dancing with the Stars is still going strong, even if some viewers still aren’t altogether convinced that Tyra Banks was the right choice to host the long-running series. Fortunately for fans of Tom Bergeron, he could be returning to television courtesy of another network, even if not necessarily in the coming months.
