While viewer might have been surprised when Tom Bergeron in 2019 after 14 years as a host of the Dancing with the stars show said he wasn’t caught off-guard by the decision. While speaking on one of the podcasts he recounted the events leading up to his exit, many of which involved the inclusion of former white House Press Secretary Sean Spicer as a contestant. He was very vocal about his disapproval that he said it wasn’t about supporting the political party over the other. “Whether it was somebody I voted for or didn’t, I didn’t think a political person was an appropriate booking for the show, but also for the time we were going to be on, which was really on the cusp of the presidential election campaign, so we differed on that,” he explained on the podcast. “I was public about that. I don’t think that sat well with the producer or the network.”
That was a time when Bergeron said that casting decision was not only taken against his preferences but also against what he felt he had to agree upon that with the producers. “We can all agree to disagree,” he stated at the time. “As we do now, but ultimately it’s their call. I’ll leave it to them to answer any further questions about those decisions.” While indirectly talking about Spicer during the podcast Bergeron added that; “I told that person, ‘Whether it was you or someone from the other major party who I would have voted for, that wasn’t the issue. I would have released the same statement if it was somebody I supported because I don’t think they belong here, now.’ I just thought DWTS would be a nice place to take a break for everybody, for two hours a week. But they’re entitled to do the show the way they think is best.”
Bergeron added that he didn’t really mourn his exit from the show. “The show that I left was not the show that I loved. So at the end of the seasons that turned out to be my last season, I kind of knew,” he shared. “So I took everything out of my dressing room that I really wanted because I felt it was kind of obvious that we were kind of butting heads. It was great to have Erin Andrews at my side because she and I just kind of locked arms and did the show.” Bergeron also added with confidence that; “I think Erin and I had more fun being fired than virtually anybody,” he said. “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 monogramed towels.'”
“I look back at the time I spent there with really great fondness for the vast majority of it,” he said. “And also there are people on the show performing that I still care about, and I want them to have long careers. I want people to still watch it and support them and understand that, sure, it’s still different, but there are still very, very talented people that are going to be on your screens.”
