Tom Bergeron will soon be back in the Dancing With the Stars ballroom to celebrate the show’s 20th anniversary.
Good Morning America announced on Wednesday, November 5, that Bergeron, 70, will serve as the guest judge for the 20th Birthday Party episode of the ABC reality competition series.
“It feels really good [to be back], I’m really looking forward to it,” Bergeron said on Wednesday, adding that he’s been “reminiscing” on all the fun he had hosting the show. “I think 20 years of any primetime show is amazing. For a show 20 years old to also be having a ratings resurgence as they are, you’re more likely to see a zebra playing the piano. And I really think it’s a credit to the team kind of getting it back to its essence.”
Bergeron hinted there’s a couple of front-runners on season 34 — and expressed his excitement for judging fan favorite Andy Richter. “He epitomizes what I always thought the show was at its best,” Bergeron said.
‘Dancing With the Stars’ Hosts Through the Years
In addition to welcoming Bergeron back, the 20th anniversary episode will commemorate the history of Dancing With the Stars by setting all first round dances to music from iconic freestyles of the past 20 years. Plus, for the first time ever, celebrity contestants will get the opportunity to perform competitive dances without their pro partners for bonus points.
Bergeron was the original host of Dancing With the Stars when it premiered in June 2005, serving in the role for 28 seasons. He and cohost Erin Andrews were ultimately fired in July 2020 and replaced by Tyra Banks. After Banks’ March 2023 exit, current cohosts Alfonso Ribeiro and Julianne Hough took over, starting with season 32 later that year.
Executive producer Andrew Llinares later explained why Bergeron was relieved of his hosting duties.
“I think it’s all about evolution. I think any show like this that has been on many, many seasons needs to continue to evolve,” Llinares told reporters in September 2020. “I think changing the host was all about evolution, it was about making the show feel fresh, making it feel new [and] kind of make it reach out — maybe to a new audience as well, as well as the audience that’s been there for years.”
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Bergeron, for his part, hinted at tension behind the scenes of Dancing With the Stars prior to his exit.
“In all candor, the show that I left was not the show that I loved,” he said during an October 2021 episode of the “Bob Saget’s Here for You” podcast. “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.”
Two years later, Bergeron confirmed that his outspokenness about the casting of former White House press secretary Sean Spicer on season 28 of Dancing With the Stars factored into his dismissal.
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“They had screwed me. I’m gonna screw them,” he said during an October 2023 episode of Cheryl Burke’s “Sex, Lies and Spray Tans” podcast, referring to a statement in which he expressed his displeasure over the show’s decision to feature political figures as contestants. “But I wanted the viewers to know this was a step too far to me.”
Despite the circumstances surrounding his exit, Bergeron insisted of his overall time on the show, “I look at the math and 95 percent of my experience was really quite wonderful.”
