Earlier this year, ABC made the shocking announcing that Tom Bergeron and Erin Andrews were being let go as hosts of Dancing With The Stars. Bergeron hosted the reality dance competition since its inaugural season back in 2005, while Andrews joined him as co-host in 2014. The hosting duo was replaced by Tyra Banks for the current season.
n Wednesday (September 30), executive producer Andrew Llinares shared the show's reasoning for letting its mega-popular hosts go. “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,” he said during ABC’s VirtuFall panel. “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.”
"I think there’s a real danger when a show’s been on for a long time that the audience almost gets bored of the rhythm," Llinares continued. It doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with it. It just sort of gets a little boring — the rhythm of it. So, I think it’s changed the rhythm of the show in a really exciting way.”
It didn't take long for Bergeron and Andrews to catch wind of Llinares' comments, either. The former hosting duo poked fun at the executive producers comments just a few hours later. “SEE [Erin], I TOLD you we shouldn’t have sabotaged the spray tanner!!” Bergeron tweeted alongside a screenshot of a headline from the virtual panel. “UGGGGHHH [Tom]! I’m the one that WARNED you that the sequins weren’t shiny enough,” Andrews replied.
While the pair are able to joke about their firing now, Andrews previously revealed it was a tough situation to accept at first. “I didn’t have much time to deal with it. I got a phone call— we were on the putting green with my dog and my husband — and I got a call that said, ‘You know, so-and-so from ABC wants to talk to you,’ and I was like, ‘Oh, s–t,’ like, this is it,” she recalled in an interview. “I felt sorry for myself, and I kind of was like, ‘This is a terrible time to lose my job,’ because we don’t know when live television is coming back. These are hard jobs to get.”
The current season of Dancing With the Stars, hosted by Banks, airs on ABC Mondays at 8 p.m. ET.
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