Tom Bergeron is finally speaking out about his abrupt firing as host of “Dancing With the Stars.“
The media personality helmed the ABC dancing competition series for 28 seasons, along with co-host Erin Andrews since 2014, and departed the show in July 2020.
While appearing on “Bob Saget’s Here for You” podcast Bergeron admitted he felt things changing behind the scenes of the show and figured he wouldn’t be around for much longer.
“In all candor, the show that I left was not the show that I loved,” the 66-year-old explained. “So, the end of the season that turned out to be my last season [in 2019], I kind of knew. So I took everything out of my dressing room that I really wanted … It was kind of obvious that we were kind of butting heads.”
TOM BERGERON TEASES NEW HOSTING GIG BUT SAYS HE WON’T BE RETURNING TO ‘DANCING WITH THE STARS’
Bergeron added that he hasn’t been dwelling on the past, either.
“It’s pretty far in the rearview mirror for me. I’m on to other stuff,” he said.
The “America’s Funniest Home Videos” alum also told Saget, 65, why he doesn’t like to constantly talk about exiting the show. He mused, “You know what nobody needs to hear? A whiny millionaire… It’s so self-absorbed. I mean, look. I had great fortune. I mean, I had two network shows running simultaneously for the better part of a decade and a half.”
Back in April, Bergeron told host Vicki Abelson that his relationship with the show’s producers was changing, and not for the better.
“The show had changed a lot for me starting in early 2008. We had very clear, sometimes public, differences of opinion about the new showrunner and some of the execs and happily, I was at a point in my life and career where I didn’t have to just shut up and take it. I decided to go public with some concerns I had at that time and I think that set the stage for it. I kind of saw it coming,” he confessed.
One issue Bergeron publicly addressed was his resistance to the casting of former President Trump’s press secretary Sean Spicer.
The emcee wrote on Twitter in summer 2019 that “my hope that DWTS, in its return following an unprecedented year-long hiatus, would be a joyful respite from our exhausting political climate and free of inevitably divisive bookings from ANY party affiliations.”
“It is the prerogative of the producers, in partnership with the network, to make whatever decisions they feel are in the best long term interests of the franchise,” Bergeron added. “We can agree to disagree, as we do now, but ultimately it’s their call.”
