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Three years after his shocking departure from Dancing with the Stars (DWTS), TV character Tom Bergeron has sturdy phrases to clarify his exit: “They screwed me, I’m gonna screw them.”
Throughout a current look on DWTS professional Cheryl Burke’s “Intercourse, Lies and Spray Tans” podcast, Bergeron mentioned he left the present after criticizing producers for his or her controversial determination to ask former White Home press secretary Sean Spicer to compete.
Bergeron, 68, famously hosted the competitors dance present from 2005 to 2020. Regardless of his 15-year tenure with the manufacturing, Bergeron mentioned his insistence that Spicer shouldn’t be allowed on DWTS didn’t go over effectively.
Bergeron advised Burke he envisioned DWTS as a “fantastic escape” from the common rigmarole of U.S. politics and the state of the nation main as much as the 2020 election.
“I mentioned, ‘Guys, that is precisely what we mentioned we wouldn’t do. Don’t go there,’” Bergeron recalled telling a bunch of the present’s producers over lunch.
The previous host mentioned he’d already signed a brand new three-season contract by the point Spicer was chosen in 2019. No matter his protestation, Bergeron mentioned DWTS showrunners have been set on having Spicer in dance footwear.
Bergeron provided to take the twenty eighth season of DWTS off. In return, DWTS producers provided to launch him from the brand new contract, he mentioned.
“That’s how strongly they felt,” Bergeron defined.
He mentioned the choice to maintain Spicer ignited his mood and “actually pissed me off.”
“At that second, I knew that is most likely my final season, due to that one betrayal,” Bergeron continued. “Up till that time, there have been individuals of character there.”
Bergeron even launched a disapproving private assertion on the time of Spicer’s casting announcement. Although he didn’t identify Spicer particularly, mentioned he was not aligned with the franchise’s determination to e-book political figures of any affiliation.
“We will conform to disagree, as we do now, however in the end it’s their name,” he mentioned on the time.
The general public’s response to Spicer’s casting was much like Bergeron’s personal, with individuals many outraged to see a political determine, former or energetic, within the present’s lineup.
Bergeron mentioned his private assertion on “Intercourse, Lies and Spray Tans” and mentioned he wished DWTS viewers to know the producers threw him “a curveball.”
He mentioned he didn’t inform community executives earlier than releasing the assertion as a result of “they didn’t should know.”
“They’d screwed me. I’m gonna screw them,” Bergeron defended. “I wished the viewers to know this was a step too far. This was a step too far on the cusp of an election yr.”
“I might have responded the identical means if that they had booked Hillary Clinton, whom I voted for,” Bergeron maintained.
DWTS has not launched an official assertion in response to Bergeron’s newest criticisms.
Bergeron nonetheless hosted the twenty eighth season of DWTS. Spicer was voted out after eight weeks of competitors.
In July 2020, Bergeron and his then-co-host Erin Andrews each introduced they have been leaving DWTS. Internet hosting duties have been subsequently crammed by Tyra Banks.
Banks departed from DWTS earlier this yr and was changed by Alfonso Ribeiro and Julianne Hough in Season 32.
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