Heavy/Getty/ABC Tom Bergeron.
Tom Bergeron had a plan to leave “Dancing with the Stars” before his firing from the show nearly four years ago. The veteran television host exited the ABC celebrity balloon show in 2020 after 28 seasons, and Tyra Banks replaced him.
In an October 2023 interview on Cheryl Burke’s “Sex, Lies, & Spray Tans” podcast, Bergeron reflected on how long it’s been since he’s been in the ballroom.
“My last season was in 2019,” he told Burke. “You know. it’s been almost four years. There were people who were starting their freshmen of high school who are looking at colleges now since I last hosted that show.”
Bergeron also teased that he had an exit plan before ABC made the decision for him.
Here’s what you need to know:
Tom Bergeron Planned to Leave DWTS in 2021
Starting in 2005, Bergeron hosted 28 seasons of DWTS before the COVID-19 pandemic put production into a tailspin. In July 2020, the network announced that the show would be going in a new creative direction without Bergeron or his co-host Erin Andrews.
At the time, he shared the news on the social media platform Twitter. “Just informed @DancingABC will be continuing without me,” he wrote, per Us Weekly. “It’s been an incredible 15-year run and the most unexpected gift of my career.”
While speaking with Burke on the 2023 podcast, Bergeron noted that he had planned to only host two more seasons of the celebrity ballroom show before he was axed. “My contract went to season 30, at which point I was going to leave anyway,” Bergeron said.
While Banks only lasted for three seasons, Bergeron approves of her replacements. In 2023, Alfonso Ribeiro and Julianne Hough were announced as co-hosts for season 32, which premiered in September. The duo’s past dance experience – Ribeiro won the mirror ball in season 19 while Hough competed as a pro dancer – set them apart from Bergeron and Banks.
“You know what I saw online, it was Alfonso and Julianne doing a little dance,” Bergeron told Burke. “And I thought there it is, they’re the right ones.”
Tom Bergeron Had Been Unhappy on DWTS For a While Before Being Fired
Bergeron has made clear that he didn’t always agree with producers’ decisions on the show. In September 2021, Bergeron appeared on Bob Saget’s “Here For You” podcast where he shared that he wasn’t happy on the show by the time he left.
“In all candor, the show that I left was not the show that I loved,” he told Saget. “The end of the season that turned out to be my last season, I kind of knew.”
He even cleared out his dressing room at the end of season 28 because he had a feeling about his status on the show. “It was kind of obvious that we were butting heads,” he said of his relationship with producers.
Bergeron, who also hosted “America’s Funniest Videos” on ABC, admitted that DWTS started to change early on, in 2008. He added that he let his unhappiness himself for years because “nobody needs to hear… a whiny millionaire.”
“I mean, look, I had great fortune,” Bergeron said. “I had two network shows running simultaneously for the better part of a decade and a half.”
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