Host With The Most with Tom Bergeron

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
This is sex, Lies and spray tands with me Cheryl
Burke and iHeartRadio podcast. Today, I have the privilege of
interviewing the host with the most heart that made millions
of people smile and thousands of families come together every
week to tune into what was named a pop culture phenomena,
Dancing with the Stars. He brought so much heart to
the show and unknowingly would play a huge part in

(00:23):
how the cast and crew, despite our nerves and anxiety,
brought light and love onto the dance floor. Please welcome
my dance dad and the best host Dancing with the
Stars ever had and ever will have, mister Thomas bergeron
Dance Dad, you look younger every single time I see you?

Speaker 2 (00:44):
Hey, can I make a a I noticed on Instagram
that that Brook you refer to as your soul's sister.

Speaker 1 (00:53):
Correct?

Speaker 2 (00:53):
And I'm your dance dad.

Speaker 1 (00:55):
Correct.

Speaker 2 (00:56):
Couldn't I be like your dance older brother or something.

Speaker 1 (00:59):
That's way too Does that roll off the tongue like
dance doesn't? Okay?

Speaker 2 (01:03):
I was just feeling like it was slightly agis, but you.

Speaker 1 (01:06):
Want going to call you my dance brother like that
also doesn't roll off the tongue and it just sounds weird.
Dance daddy, No, that sounds oddly weirder. That sounds kind
of creepy.

Speaker 2 (01:21):
Yeah, it's dance daddy.

Speaker 1 (01:24):
It's my dance daddy. Well, Hi, d double d how
about double d? Oh? There you go.

Speaker 2 (01:30):
Oh that's cool.

Speaker 1 (01:31):
That means ye apostrophe s uh all right, I like that. Tom,
It's like as if no time has passed.

Speaker 2 (01:41):
Well, we've known each other, what a few months ago?

Speaker 1 (01:42):
Right, Yes, let's just get to it. Tell the audience
and listeners why the hell you You know you were
supposed to do this podcast with me? Why the cold feet? Hey?

Speaker 2 (01:53):
All right here, here's here's I'll give them the whole background.
So Cheryl and I talked about doing a podcast together,
and you are currently watching it. What I realized was,
I've gotten very comfortably lazy in the past few years,
doing the odd project here or there. But this podcast

(02:13):
would have required me doing something every f and week
and I just twice a week. Well, that's even worse. Oh.
So I kind of somewhat hesitantly because I didn't want
to hurt Cheryl's feelings. I kind of said, you know,
I just I don't want to do it.

Speaker 1 (02:33):
That's okay. You know what we would have gotten in
really big trouble if we actually could have It's a godsend.

Speaker 2 (02:40):
Really from what I read and I watched a video
you put on Instagram. You've been catching some heat for
this anyway, a lot right without my participation.

Speaker 1 (02:51):
I know, but I think it's because it's all leading
up to this interview that is happening as we speak.
People are starting to get a little nervous.

Speaker 2 (02:59):
Let me have a of one of New Hampshire's finest IPAs.

Speaker 1 (03:02):
I would get another can if you can. Well, first,
i'd like to say, remember the good old days?

Speaker 2 (03:10):
Oh my, oh my gosh. Is that from one of
the cast parties the finales?

Speaker 1 (03:14):
First of all, how tan is my arm compared to
your face?

Speaker 2 (03:17):
Well, look, you've always been more tan than I am.
I mean, I'm I'm forty four percent Irish, so.

Speaker 1 (03:23):
You know I thought I was too. The sun is
not my friend, No it's not. But yes, that was
one of your mid season parties.

Speaker 2 (03:30):
Oh the mid season party. I had such fun doing those,
I really did. I love doing those.

Speaker 1 (03:36):
Before we get there, we're going to go back down
memory lane. Yeah, just but because there's so much to
talk about with just d since this is called sex,
lies and spray tans. Yes, Unfortunately, we're not going to
talk about like little Tom bergeron though I'm like genuinely
curious about like the way you were raised, what type
of trauma you've ever dealt with, Like I would love

(03:58):
to talk about that, But no one is tuning in
for this, right, soah, they don't care about my trauma. Trauma.
Nobody cares about my trauma, you know what I'm talking about. Hey,
we're going to bring it back to when Babet Perry
Hour at one point, Agent right called you and said

(04:20):
you need to watch the DVD. I've been stalking you
clearly because you said this in one of your interviews,
So hopefully your story is the same. It's the same.
Is there something as DVDs anymore?

Speaker 2 (04:31):
Maybe I've got some VHS tapes here which I'm going
to send to a museum.

Speaker 1 (04:37):
Sarah kids, And she said, watch this before you answer
my question or made a decision.

Speaker 2 (04:43):
She led into that request by saying it was a
phone conversation. She said, ABC wants you to host the
summer show, and you're going to do it. I wow,
Oh really, she said, Look it's live. You love working live?
I said yeah. She said it's a big hit in England.

(05:04):
I said yeah. She was going to be on for
for six weeks so it doesn't conflict with the AFE
schedule and all that. Okay, good, what is it? And
then she said you've got a promise before you answer that,
you look at a DVD of the British show. I said,
all right, well that's fair.

Speaker 1 (05:22):
What is it?

Speaker 2 (05:24):
She said, it's a ballroom competition. I went, oh, I
can't tell you where I.

Speaker 1 (05:28):
Actually no, yes, you can all this is a podcast.

Speaker 2 (05:32):
I said, oh fucking ah, geeze, you know, just why
don't you just put a bullet in my career? Come on?
But true to their word, the BBC overnighted a DVD
of the show Strictly Come Dancing and Cheryl. Within fifteen
minutes I was in.

Speaker 1 (05:48):
I was really yep.

Speaker 2 (05:50):
I thought it was a wonderful sort of kitchy throwback
to the old style variety shows that I watched growing up,
but it had an awareness about it. I mean Bruce Forsyth,
who was just a renowned he was the Regis of
of England. He had such an almost a vaudevillian sensibility. Uh,

(06:14):
And I said, well, the show doesn't take itself too seriously,
and it's a whole genre and milliere that I don't
even know. Wait, you just said that's the French part
of me coming out.

Speaker 1 (06:27):
Yeah, said I pa, come it out of you.

Speaker 2 (06:29):
All right, we'll be here, we'll be talking all kinds
of languages.

Speaker 1 (06:32):
It's all different languages captions. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (06:36):
So I thought, you know, well, look it might be.
It's it's only going to be, you know, one shot
summer deal. So why not? Why not?

Speaker 1 (06:47):
And when you saw this, were you like, wait, first
of all, did she say ballroom dance or did she
say ballroom?

Speaker 2 (06:53):
I think she said a celebrity ballroom show.

Speaker 1 (06:55):
Wow. So what was your first picture in your head
when she said this? Like, was it like PBS specials,
like old people waltzing?

Speaker 2 (07:04):
Or yeah, well it wasn't Evander Holyfield doing the quick step.

Speaker 1 (07:08):
I'll tell you that with her tits out.

Speaker 2 (07:11):
Oh, Kelly, Kelly, our first, our first champ.

Speaker 1 (07:14):
I eve he the wardrobe malfunction.

Speaker 2 (07:18):
Yeah, yeah, you know, you got to start somewhere than
someone else, Nancy Grace, maybe Nancy who denied it happened, which.

Speaker 1 (07:29):
Her nipple was out as she was waiting for the
judge of scores.

Speaker 2 (07:32):
In my ear because you know, the producers were talk
into my little i FB thing that I wore and
they said, you know, you got to block the camera,
and Nancy's.

Speaker 1 (07:42):
Yeah, And then now we have pedal checks thanks to her.
Oh is that right? Literally, someone will okay, we'll get there.
That's recent.

Speaker 2 (07:51):
All right, Well I'm not recent.

Speaker 1 (07:54):
We now are not recent.

Speaker 2 (07:56):
We're not I I will say this. I think that
the two people doing it now, because they're in season
one now.

Speaker 1 (08:05):
They're either oh you just wait, no, wait, because I
still answer the question. What was the question? The question
was what was your first the first picture? Yeah, in
the first picture like black and white television or oh.

Speaker 2 (08:18):
No, it wasn't a PBS thing. I assumed it would
be a reality show competition because you know, those were
the those were the thing with Survivor and Amazing Race
and what else was on at that point? Naked American Idol,
American Idol?

Speaker 1 (08:34):
Was?

Speaker 2 (08:34):
I think it just yea Naked and Afraid? Did you
see the new one that you can get on Paramount
Plus I think it is?

Speaker 1 (08:40):
Or no, no, why Naked and Afraid remind me of
Drew Carey. But we'll get there too later.

Speaker 2 (08:45):
Well. Yeah, it's like people are naked on this reality
show Naked Attraction. I think it's called and and they're
actually you. You decide whether you you're going to date
them based on actually looking at their their naked bodies.
That's that's true.

Speaker 1 (09:00):
And the people at home are afraid. They didn't call
me to host that one. Thank god. Can you guys
be naked up there with them?

Speaker 2 (09:08):
No, the host wasn't naked.

Speaker 1 (09:09):
Oh did you have so? Okay, Okay, forget your visualization skills. Okay,
we're going to We're going to fast forward just a
little bit to where you decided to do this. Okay, Yeah,
did you ever think back then that the show was
going to be a phenomena?

Speaker 2 (09:29):
Do you now the conversation we had backstage the Larry
King show Larry King Live. And it must have been
only like two seasons.

Speaker 1 (09:37):
In nineteen sixty Yeah.

Speaker 2 (09:39):
Because you came on board with season two.

Speaker 1 (09:42):
I was season four because we did this whole sit
down interview with Larry King. This is when we had
Super Bowl ratings, right, that's right.

Speaker 2 (09:49):
But you came on the show in season two one,
two and three, and I think we were doing Larry
King and backstage you said, how how long do you
think this can last? I said, you know, at the outside,
maybe five years? And what is that?

Speaker 1 (10:03):
Eight years or something or like, yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 2 (10:09):
Well, I was trying to be more optimistic than you were,
but realistic based on my experience of television shows. But
you know, it turned out to be an anomaly, and
so so did the video show that still is on.

Speaker 1 (10:23):
So I'm going to ask you the same question, how
long do you think this show has left?

Speaker 2 (10:27):
Well, that's that's harder to gauge because network television isn't
what it was when we first did it. You know,
I think that it's been good for the show that
it's sort of in a way, I would imagine the
reason it's back on ABC this season is because of
the SAG after a strike and the writers strike, so

(10:49):
so it's got another opportunity to find its broadcast audience.
But you know, you hear even Bob Ider talking about
potentially selling ABC. So it's you know, it's a very
different world and what well that would be the question,
wouldn't It's almost like trying to sell a newspaper now,
you're trying to sell something that in five years might

(11:10):
not exist anymore.

Speaker 1 (11:11):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (11:12):
So I think network Television we had the best of it.
We had the last big wave of you know, like
you said, those twenty plus million viewers our finale. Sometimes
there'd be portions of the finale that would hit thirty
million viewers.

Speaker 1 (11:28):
Thirty five million. I think West Mario as an emmince
is that that was the height.

Speaker 2 (11:34):
I mean, that's just inconceivable now. And now, if you
can pull half of a ratings point in the eighteen
to forty nine demo, you're doing something. And I think that,
you know, the show's making four or five million viewers,
which may be where the show is now, I don't know.
You know, that's that's okay in this environment.

Speaker 1 (11:55):
And that was like season wait was season one? Because
I wasn't a part of season one? How was that one?

Speaker 2 (12:00):
I don't remember the exact numbers, but it was. It
was surprising. I mean, it turned into almost within two weeks.
It turned into something that we thought, Okay, this this
might be around for a while.

Speaker 1 (12:11):
Thanks to Kelly's costume.

Speaker 2 (12:13):
Yeah, well she was. I think it was just it
was the right show at the right time. For people
looking for a little bit of an.

Speaker 1 (12:19):
Escape, a little bit of spray tands, sex lines and
spray tants.

Speaker 2 (12:23):
Just here you go. Yeah, I just worked the title
in so.

Speaker 1 (12:26):
With your first co host so I never met her.

Speaker 2 (12:28):
Lisa Lisa Canning.

Speaker 1 (12:30):
Yeah. So did you choose your co host or how
did this work? Did you have a chemistry test? And
for people?

Speaker 2 (12:37):
I mean I don't recall doing it with Lisa.

Speaker 1 (12:42):
I think I were you the host first by yourself
without Lisa or no, no, I.

Speaker 2 (12:46):
Always co hosted the show. There was always somebody in
that sort of skybox position. Lisa was the first, then
Samantha Harris, yes, and then Brooke.

Speaker 1 (12:57):
And then Aaron yeah yeah, and then Tyra.

Speaker 2 (13:01):
Well I wasn't around for that. And she kept the
monogram towels.

Speaker 1 (13:07):
That's amazing. How did lout Lois feel, mind you? How
is she doing right? She's upstairs now. As a matter
of fact, Y nice, so much time together now you
have all this time, you're like a reinventing the wheel.

Speaker 2 (13:20):
That's more of a burden for her than me.

Speaker 1 (13:21):
I thank you for sure. How did she feel about
you being around a bunch of girls running around in
spray tans? And Rhyanstone Fringe barely their costumes.

Speaker 2 (13:31):
I'll tell you it was her and the bet who
double teamed me to convince me to do it.

Speaker 1 (13:37):
They tag teamed, Yeah, they did.

Speaker 2 (13:39):
Lois had seen there was some dance movie that I
think j lo did with maybe Richard Gear or something like that,
Dance Shall We Dance? And I guess some of her friends,
her girlfriends had taken ballroom classes, so she was like,
they want you to do it. It's live television. It's
sort of building in popularity. What do you get to lose?

Speaker 1 (14:00):
You know.

Speaker 2 (14:02):
I didn't expect that the producer America's Funniest Videos would
get really upset that I was doing it because I
wasn't even I don't know, I don't know, but that
that turned it into a little bit of a drama
and that work is not like that. Yeah, yeah, it
was interesting. So so that was taken care of by

(14:23):
the upper management of ABC.

Speaker 1 (14:25):
Yeah, yeah, got you.

Speaker 2 (14:27):
Yeah, that issue went.

Speaker 1 (14:30):
Away right and not you, but the issue did no
and you know, and.

Speaker 2 (14:34):
Then I think they came to realize on the other
show that they could benefit by the popularity of dancing
had sort of a halo effect on the video show
and Carrie Anne came over and visited, and Sharna was
on it I believe, and.

Speaker 1 (14:50):
Wasn't around back then.

Speaker 2 (14:51):
Well I think Sharna was on one of the shows later,
maybe on one of the video shows later. But as
you can tell, I, my memory.

Speaker 1 (14:59):
Is, you know or Cheryl are two different people.

Speaker 2 (15:03):
I'm hiding my own Easter eggs at this point.

Speaker 1 (15:05):
So do you remember the very first dance you? Okay,
like just go back in time, like sixty years ago
and when you first walked into the ballroom. First of all,
I know the ballroom didn't look like what it does
now or even season two, but like, what was the
very first dance move and who was it? Like? What
did you see? And were you shocked?

Speaker 2 (15:27):
No, I don't think I was shocked the first I
thought you were going to ask what's the first dance
that impressed you? And it was I mean, it's not
going to be yeah, that's later, because it was it.

Speaker 1 (15:36):
Was thousands of questions. You know what was there? Save
a horse ride a cowboy? Save a horse ride, my cowboy,
ride my cowboy. No, I'm kidding, giddy, giddy.

Speaker 2 (15:50):
But I just I remember I was supposed to speak
at my niece's high school senior chapel at Haveroll High
the high school I went to, and that was going
to happen on the on the premier day of the
first season of Dancing with the Stars, So I had
to beg off that commitment. And I remember going to
the school that I had gone to and taping basically

(16:14):
an apology and the bit was me behind a podium
electron and I said, you know, I had really hoped
to be here with you for your senior chapel, but
unfortunately I have to be in California watching Evander Holyfield
do the chat chop right, And at that point my
niece and another student came in from either side, and

(16:34):
my niece goes, really, that's what you're going with?

Speaker 1 (16:39):
Was she first? Like, who's a Vander Holyfield?

Speaker 2 (16:41):
Pretty much? But but they played it perfectly and they
pull they picked up the elector and they walked off
with it and I was kind of left there. So
they played that at the senior chapel.

Speaker 1 (16:52):
I hope she still has that. That's amazing, Yeah, that
VHS tape. When did you know that Dancing with the Stars,
like point, like was it season one or season two
that you knew it was going to be a huge hit,
like it was pretty big.

Speaker 2 (17:05):
Well, I thought, hey, this might be a regular summer
thing because of the ratings of the first season. But
then because there was some criticism of the championship in
season one, John o'hurley's fans thought he should have won,
and you know, YadA, YadA, YadA.

Speaker 1 (17:26):
So I think Kelly won though, right.

Speaker 2 (17:29):
Yeah, she absolutely won. And then one again, no, she
didn't win on the face off thing, the dance off, oh,
the dance Off, because she was winning in every region
of the country until the last and then John pulled
the head just a little bit. But to me, that
was that was just ridiculous. Yeah, And the reason they

(17:50):
did that, I think was just to keep the franchise
alive in people's minds because we had wrapped during the summer.
I think that the Dance Off happened in the fall,
and season two didn't really happen until the following February
of six. And the Dance Off did not do that
well in the ratings, right, And it made sense that

(18:13):
it wouldn't do that well because who the hell cared?

Speaker 1 (18:17):
Do you think that's why All Stars didn't do well?
Same type of formula. Right.

Speaker 2 (18:20):
Yeah. Conrad, who's back executive producing the show now, which
I'm I'm very pleased about, had the best line after
that season, rap the All Star season. I said, Geez,
con I thought I thought that would do really well,
and he said, yeah, well we all did. But you know,
when you stop and think about it, thirteen people come
in as champions and twelve leave as losers.

Speaker 1 (18:44):
That is so true. Good point. Yeah, so you think
it would work if they had all the injured. Remember,
like Jewel was supposed to do it. Remember when like
Sarah Evans had to leave, Like all these people that
got injured, would that work?

Speaker 2 (18:56):
Yeah, well Sarah didn't leave for an injury. That was
more of family crisis. But I remember getting Jewel backstage
because she'd be on crutches, so because she was there
because the guy she was with at the time was
got of her husband. Yeah, and I called her hop along, Hey,
hop along?

Speaker 1 (19:11):
How you do it? I mean, but she would have
been great, Like, there's people.

Speaker 2 (19:15):
That would have been a better approach, people who like
Misty may trainor who you know, had an acl injury
and all that that would have been a better approach
than All Stars.

Speaker 1 (19:24):
Like Tom delay when he fractured both his feet, going to.

Speaker 2 (19:27):
Live without that, but as I'm sure you could have,
but that was actually the beginning of the slippery Slope.

Speaker 1 (19:35):
I thought, we'll get to the slippery slope. That's episode two,
Part two, Thomas. So what did you think of, like, okay,
the chemistry between the three judges now, like obviously did
did you do you remember hearing the grumblings from like
pro dancers, like how dare they have Carrie in and
Bruno and they don't know what they're talking about? Or
was it just all good old innocent fun in the beginning?

Speaker 2 (19:57):
Well, yeah, I think I'm sure there was that kind
of grumbling going on behind the scenes. But I had
the advantage I had, as I'm sure you know from
having watched me host it. I would show up on
show day. Maybe I'd show up on Sunday to watch
some of the blocking rehearsals. I did the show live.

(20:19):
I never stayed around for press interviews after I was
at the Whisper Lounge with friends over in the Grove
by the time the copyright hit on the air, and
then I went home. So, you know, a lot of
the intrigue and this was another part of why I
decided maybe my participation in the podcast wouldn't be that helpful.

(20:41):
I really didn't know a lot of this.

Speaker 1 (20:44):
I mean, I'm just asking questions. You don't need to
know any of it. Okay, oh, good, good, And it's
never too late to join if you'd like to, you know,
all right, fair enough, fair enough. But yeah, I think
you're right, Tom. I think you know what because you know,
I don't know if you've heard any of the episodes yet,
But like with Brooke, like we're going there, we go there.
He just called me the Asian Oprah.

Speaker 2 (21:04):
The Asian Oprah.

Speaker 1 (21:06):
All right, I like that.

Speaker 2 (21:07):
I like that.

Speaker 1 (21:08):
How's Brooke? She's good, she's married again, right, she's getting
married again, getting married again. Yeah, she had some really
nice words to say about you, shockingly, shockingly. I love her.
She's a sweet and her have gotten really close the
last few months especially, so Yeah, I like that.

Speaker 2 (21:25):
The pictures you posted were great too. I'm overdue for
a lunch with.

Speaker 1 (21:30):
Her, yeah and me three B lunch, triple B. Okay, so,
what was the most shocking thing that you've ever witnessed
on Dancing with the Stars. I know what you're gonna say,
but maybe the listeners don't.

Speaker 2 (21:52):
There's three, there's wow. You might know more than I do.

Speaker 1 (21:56):
It definitely the most shocking thing. Another reason why you're
not on this on the shoe.

Speaker 2 (22:02):
No kidding, no kiddy, I don't know. I don't shock
that easily. Oh well, look Marie Osmond. Marie Osmond fainting
would be the number one the Ryan Lochtey when people
rush the stage.

Speaker 1 (22:14):
Wait, you're gonna have to say more.

Speaker 2 (22:16):
All right, Well, look when Marie Osman passed out after
doing a samba and had low blood sugar, all right,
she drops.

Speaker 1 (22:25):
Right and us.

Speaker 2 (22:30):
So I did what anybody would do in a crisis situation.
I threw to a commercial.

Speaker 1 (22:36):
And did you think she was joking?

Speaker 2 (22:39):
No, I didn't know, because I could see her as
a matter of fact to that point. She had a
talk show on like the Hallmark Channel or something like
that a few years later, and I was a guest,
and she told that she had a studio audience and everything,
and she said to me on the show, she said,
you know, some people thought I was faking.

Speaker 1 (22:55):
Yeah, that's another conspiracy theory.

Speaker 2 (22:57):
I turned to the audience and I said, look, I
was staring down at her after she fainted, and I've
never seen even an Osma look that white.

Speaker 1 (23:09):
Really, What was Jonathan Roberts's reaction because no one asks
about that guy?

Speaker 2 (23:13):
Yeah, well I think he, like, I waited for the
paramedics to come in and all of that and just
and what was great was when she kind of blinked awake.
I don't know if you've ever fainted in your.

Speaker 1 (23:25):
Life, No, I've never.

Speaker 2 (23:26):
I know how disorienting, disoriented you can feel when you're
waking up. And she looked up and she locked eyes
with me, and the first two words out of her
mouth were, oh crap.

Speaker 1 (23:39):
Oh, so she was used to this.

Speaker 2 (23:43):
No, I don't know that she was used to it,
but she just realized that she had just fainted on
live television. Sheet So what that did, though, it gave
me the perfect welcome back from an elongated commercial break
because I was able to sort of key up the
fact that she's fine. The first words out of her
mouth were oh crap, which got a very relieved laugh

(24:04):
from the audience in the ballroom.

Speaker 1 (24:06):
And then the show ratings, I'm sure.

Speaker 2 (24:08):
Well, yeah, I mean it became well, it was all
over the place. I mean, it was on every newscast
and the entertainment show, and I got a very sweet
voicemail from Jerry Springer. As a matter of fact, I know,
I know, saying how well I had handled it.

Speaker 1 (24:26):
And I talked to him later. I said, Jerry, I
just threw to a commercial. That's all I really know.
But not a lot of people would know to do that.

Speaker 2 (24:32):
Yeah, but it's interesting. I instantly went from TV host
to friend. It was like that, that's the moment I
saw her in trouble. It didn't matter I was hosting
a television show. That the key was, let's let's let's
make sure she's okay.

Speaker 1 (24:47):
So that's the advice that you gave to me when
I wanted to get into hosting. You said, make sure
when you do this that you're just talking to one
person through that.

Speaker 2 (24:55):
Yeah, that's right. Yeah, And because it's when it's done well,
you've established a connection with people, you know that they
I don't think the camera lies, so yeah, they they
know if you're bullshitting, they know if they can trust you.
And I think that went some ways towards me building
trust with the audience when they saw how I handled that.

Speaker 1 (25:18):
And I think that that's what I hear from people
still to this day, is that they just feel like
they know you, and they feel like that you're just
talking to them personally, and that you're making light of
our blood, sweat and tears. Though at times I wanted
to wring your neck. But other than that, wait a minute.

Speaker 2 (25:34):
For the most part, I defended you guys.

Speaker 1 (25:37):
When the judge that costume I war remember no which
one the satellite one.

Speaker 2 (25:46):
During dress rehearsal, that you can pick up HBO and
your costume or something like that. I remember saying once
about one of Karina's uh Gretis Vernou's costumes. I think
it was Karina, I said, and if you tune in
next we you'll see the other half of her.

Speaker 1 (26:01):
Costume or was it her? Was it the that's funny
or no, it was edited. It had to be editor. Oh,
I think you're right. I think it was edited. Yeah,
I mean the fact that we were on Disney or
ABC whatever related and we were able to get away
with Okay, first of all, not not to t m I,
but whatever, I love edit to she knows it. At

(26:23):
one point, I swear to you I saw half of
her privates really absolutely during a dance. Absolutely okay, I mean,
thank god we moved so fast that you know, we're
gonna thank god we don't wear pasti's down there nowadays,
because that would have been painful, painful, yeah, free, free waxing.

Speaker 2 (26:44):
My favorite, my favorite ad lib of mine was I
think it was Derek and Joanna Krupa, is that right?
And they had done a really sexy samba and they
came over and Carrie Anne said, wow, I hope all
the kids are in bed, and instantly I said, well,
I've had a lot of the adults are now.

Speaker 1 (27:07):
Oh wait was this on live television?

Speaker 2 (27:10):
Oh yeah, oh yeah, And there's something about seven hundred
people bursting into laughter as one. That to me, that's
that was the real electricity for me to kind of
surf all the different moods and energies that were going
on in the course of the two hours and find
those spots.

Speaker 1 (27:29):
You know, how do you hear them, because, like I
swear to God, I could barely hear the judges sometimes.

Speaker 2 (27:34):
Yeah, no, it was. It was hard sometimes to hear,
it was, and I got very good at lip reading sometimes.

Speaker 1 (27:43):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (27:43):
But it was always good that Bruno was closest to me,
because you know, there was one season.

Speaker 1 (27:48):
Do you remember that spit on you by accident?

Speaker 2 (27:50):
Not that I'm aware of. It could have happened. There
could have been three. Do you remember that? There was
one season they moved the judge's table to the other
side of the ballroom and Bruno and I really didn't
like it because he was further away from me, and
so Carrie Anne was closest to me. Len was of
course in the middle, and Bruno was further away, and
we had established kind of a nice rapport. Yeah, and

(28:14):
uh yeah, I love Carry Anne, but Bruno and I
had kind of a thing going, and so we were going, hey,
can we swap it back?

Speaker 1 (28:21):
So they what is that feeling of? Like, okay, so
they still have three judges? Of course, you know Len
Goodman is no longer with us, Yes, yes, quick, favorite
Len Goodman memory?

Speaker 2 (28:34):
Well, the first one that funny, the first one that
comes to mind is really sort of an asterisk to
all the age jokes that I would make, right, and
he was a good sport about that. I would always,
you know, I say, hey, did you miss did you
miss your nap today? Or at the time for Len
snack or something like that. And there was one season back,

(28:55):
you know, maybe when we got together mid season, he said,
I notice you're not not making as much fun of
my age lately. I said, you know why, lend, because
I'm the same age now as you were when you started.

Speaker 1 (29:06):
Oh my gosh. Yeah yeah, so you can just tell
with your guys' hair just gives it away if you
guys would have believed in some hair dye and no
one would know.

Speaker 2 (29:15):
I I know there are people on the show who
both in front of and behind the camera, who revel
and hair.

Speaker 1 (29:21):
Dye, but not me. You know, if I were to
let my long locks grow out, I mean they're all
fake mainly, my hair would be just as white as yours,
I think, Do you think so? Oh? No, I know
you might have a few, but not at your age.
I use tweezers and then I just go. Then I'm
scared I'm going to lose all my hair.

Speaker 2 (29:41):
Yeah, that's like it wasn't there an actress who had
her eyebrows shaved and they never grew I think Lana Turner,
they never grew back. Yeah, they will be. By contrast,
will shave them just because she does.

Speaker 1 (29:54):
And it is in you know, they say, so, what
is the most shocking thing for you as a host
that you witnessed live on television that you felt paralyzed by,
like that you couldn't whether it's someone's win or the
audience's reaction or like Christy Angela went the breaking his

(30:15):
arm and dropping me on his head.

Speaker 2 (30:19):
The first one that pops in my head, and that's
kind of how I'll will to answer these based on
the first thing that happened to occurred to me was
when Bobby Bones won.

Speaker 1 (30:28):
I knew the.

Speaker 2 (30:28):
Ship was going to hit the fan. I knew they
had changed the voting around or something, and they hadn't
yet because he had a radio show that because I
think even Bobby would be honest enough to tell you
he wasn't the best dancer.

Speaker 1 (30:44):
No, but the best answer doesn't always win. Tom, Well,
that's true, but I mean he really wasn't the best dancing.
And by the way, remember that was when one Pablo.
Remember my listeners are so freaking tired of me saying this,
but one Pablo and I got eliminated. We didn't make
the final and we had like sixty to sixty. Yeah, yeah,
he won, but Bobby won. But the that was one
of my questions was like, can you just talk people

(31:05):
through who wasn't in the live audience, because like, I've
never just like the roar. It was like, what a
horrible way to win for poor Sharna.

Speaker 2 (31:15):
That's that that was. I really felt bad for Sharna
because I think she she unfairly, uh took some heat
from the network and the show. I don't think they
invited her back the next season, if I'm not mistaken.

Speaker 1 (31:32):
Was it you have?

Speaker 2 (31:33):
You got the reigning champion there, you don't invite her back?
The assholes, you know, come on, Yeah, that I think
that way. Why do you think that she wasn't invited back?
It's hard to know. It's it's hard. I think there
was controversy about Bobby's win, which I understand it has
nothing to do with her, had nothing to do with her,

(31:53):
and and it's hard to know what they're smoking in
those back rooms of the network and the BBC.

Speaker 1 (32:00):
You know, wait, when Bobby was when he won, who
was the showrunner? Ashley?

Speaker 2 (32:07):
Probably Ashley, Yeah, I would think, and.

Speaker 1 (32:09):
Then it was ritually and then Andrew, right, was that
your last season, Bobby Bones?

Speaker 2 (32:13):
No, my last season was in twenty nineteen. You know,
it's in almost four years. No way, there are people
who were starting their freshman year of high school who
are looking at colleges now. Since I last hosted that show,
my contract went to season thirty, at which point I
was going to leave anyway.

Speaker 1 (32:31):
Okay, wait, don't you dare drive this interview. Damn Dad,
I'm sorry. I know it comes natural to you. It's
hard to be. Don't just skip over ten years of
our lives. God, damn it. Let's take it back. Okay.
I'm the leader, you're the follower. All kay, I'll follow
you anywhere, my dear, Thank you, mister quickstep, we'll get

(32:52):
there too soon. Just wait, okay, okay, So Brooke Burke
said that there was a whole audition process for your
host and chemistry tests and all of this after Samantha
Care Wait, that's insanity. First of all, she told me
that why Nonah Judd was in that chemistry test could
have true.

Speaker 2 (33:11):
I don't remember that. I remember. I remember saying to
the powers that be, whoever they were at that time,
that you know Brooks and no brainer, come on.

Speaker 1 (33:21):
Right, said that she had to like really tell them
that she wants to audition, like she wasn't going to
be given it.

Speaker 2 (33:28):
Yeah, she had already won, right, she had already won.
And uh, it was clear that the two of us
got along swimmingly. And you know that's the key right there.
If you're going to be co hosting, have people co
hosting show, you want them to at least have chemistry.

Speaker 1 (33:46):
So but wi Els was in that audition. She told
me that every person you could think of. Yeah, and
she asked me if I was there, and I was like,
I wish that I knew about it.

Speaker 2 (33:56):
Yeah, I mean I was pitching for you to to,
you know, get either judging position or co chanitary both times.
But you know, I honestly don't remember because I just
was so I personally was more affixiated on Brooks and
a brainer. Why would you even go with anybody else?
But I, you know, I went through the not terribly

(34:17):
memorable other auditions to be a team player.

Speaker 1 (34:20):
Did you You didn't have to audition for this show?

Speaker 2 (34:23):
No? But I was there for chemistry tests with whoever
they were bringing in.

Speaker 1 (34:27):
What is a chemistry test? Please please walk me through this?
And also you do.

Speaker 2 (34:31):
Like sort of the teleprompter of the open of the
show or a few things like.

Speaker 1 (34:36):
That, you know, how do you base the chemistry off that.

Speaker 2 (34:40):
You know, Chemistry is something you can kind of tell
right away, you really can. I mean, it doesn't require
you know, it's it's sometimes it's not what is happening
when the camera is rolling, it's what they see when
it isn't. You know, are you the two of you
chatting together, You're cracking each other up.

Speaker 1 (34:58):
You know.

Speaker 2 (34:59):
Brooke and I had as with Aaron, just wonderful chemistry.

Speaker 1 (35:03):
Did you have one with Aaron chemistry test as well?

Speaker 2 (35:06):
No, no, no, they told me that that that was
a whole weird thing too. But but you know when
I when I was told that they were making a change,
and and they gave me their reasons and and and
you know, Aaron was doing live television all the time

(35:27):
on Fox, and she and I had worked together on
the National Spelling Bee for ABC in Washington, so we
we knew we got along and cared for each other,
and you know, but it was hard.

Speaker 1 (35:40):
It was hard to see Brooklyn. Well especially I think
what Brooke express as well was like two weeks prior
to her call, she was already paint like, meaning like
there were people painting her dressing room and all of
that and that she wished that she would have gotten
I mean, she said that it's not about the firing part.
It's about the fact that, like the way it was
brought upon, the whole process, like before she was driving

(36:02):
her kids to school, there was like no really real reason.
And then you know, to the point where I remember
she said something in the interview like, but you know
something about like I don't know if I guess I
don't deserve an explanation. I said, of course you deserve
an explanation.

Speaker 2 (36:16):
Yeah, of course, what what I know is that? And
I'm trying to remember who was the head of the
of ABC's uh entertainment arm at that point. British I'm blanking.
This will happen a lot. I'll blank on names of
people I haven't seen in the decade. But but I

(36:37):
remember getting a phone call and saying, you know, we've
we've decided we really need to make a change, and YadA, YadA, YadA,
and yeah, but I I didn't know the extent to
which they had done.

Speaker 1 (36:52):
That called you.

Speaker 2 (36:54):
No, No, he wasn't he wasn't there. Then it was
some some British guy. I'm blanking on they all.

Speaker 1 (37:03):
Anyway, But like you and Brook, thoughs continued to stay
in touch. She just speaks so highly of you. Obviously
you know that was by the way, where she is
today too. She's grateful for that experience regardless. She just
again wished that I would have had. She wished she
had some closure back then.

Speaker 2 (37:19):
I think, Yeah, I get that completely. Yeah, I don't
think it was handled well.

Speaker 1 (37:23):
Who what specific I guess dance other than save a
horse ride his cowboy was blew your mind versus like
blew your mind skill wise versus some of the dances
that like were almost so awkward that you had it
turned the other way.

Speaker 2 (37:39):
The awkward one. It's funny, though, the awkward ones you
don't turn away from. It's like why you slow down
for a car wreck on the highway.

Speaker 1 (37:48):
You got to know I have to turn away. Actually,
this is why I can't watch America's funny some on
videos because it's actually it makes me cry some people laugh.
I can't like if someone falls, I can't watch it.

Speaker 2 (37:59):
Yeah, as long as we on that show, we always
tried to show them getting up or at least having
some sort of twitch, some sort of some sort of
nervous twitch at the end. But then maybe involuntary, but
there you go. But the one the first again, I'm
going with the first thing that pop into mind, and it's, uh,
it's Derek dancing. It was I think on a result

(38:22):
show or something, and he was doing a sort of
an homage to Fred Astare and had the whole room
turning on this.

Speaker 1 (38:30):
I think him and Julianne were doing that.

Speaker 2 (38:32):
And Julianne and you know, oh my god. I mean
William Shatner is a friend of mine and he would
say to me. We'd go to dinner and he'd say
that Derek man, he's like the Gene Kelly at the
New Millennium.

Speaker 1 (38:45):
He is.

Speaker 2 (38:47):
He is, There's no no getting around it.

Speaker 1 (38:50):
Yeah, I mean this guy so like it's almost like
I wish they would have I wish he could judge
and also be creative, you know what I mean, because
it's like I feel like we're missing that from.

Speaker 2 (38:59):
Yeah, you know, I saw online and I know, forgive
me for hopping around in the time.

Speaker 1 (39:04):
Topic, just you know what, I'm going to follow your mind.

Speaker 2 (39:06):
It was it was Alfonso and Julianne doing a little
dance out by the studio and I thought, there it is, Well,
those are the.

Speaker 1 (39:14):
Problems, is that right?

Speaker 2 (39:16):
Yeah, the last time I watched network television was maybe
I don't know, eight years.

Speaker 1 (39:21):
Ago, when you were on it.

Speaker 2 (39:24):
Well, if you watching when I was on it, I didn't.

Speaker 1 (39:27):
I mean you never watched yourself.

Speaker 2 (39:29):
No, I don't like watching myself.

Speaker 1 (39:30):
So you've never seen the show at all.

Speaker 2 (39:31):
Actually, then in person, I saw it for television. The
only show I watched on television was the very first
one in two thousand and five. We all met in
my dressing room to watch the playback to the East
Coast or to the West Coast rather, and that was it,
because I did it. Why do I need to see it?

Speaker 1 (39:53):
But do you feel uncomfortable when you watch yourself?

Speaker 2 (39:56):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (39:56):
I do. I do. I'm not going to watch this
for example. No, thank god, it's a podcast. You just
have to listen. From what you can remember. The biggest
misunderstanding on the show, I mean, not like so much
a conspiracy, but like someone that you thought that may

(40:19):
be weren't like, wasn't a good person, then turned into
like a decent human being, like your first impressions or
what the press made them of.

Speaker 2 (40:26):
Yeah, the biggest curiosity to me was why they hired
the last showrunner.

Speaker 1 (40:32):
But you know not Conrad.

Speaker 2 (40:36):
No, no, I love Conrad. I love I think that
was the smartest thing.

Speaker 1 (40:39):
Mayde did turn into being a decent human being. The
other showrunner. I have no idea what his fate. I
have not followed his life. How about how about a
celebrity or like a pro dancer, like someone that may
come across as this hardcore person other than myself and
turned into like turn into likely you know what this

(41:00):
is BS, This person is amazing.

Speaker 2 (41:03):
Jerry Springer Springer. I loved that guy. I just when
when I was told they were booking Jerry Springer. All
I knew was the TV show, you know, the people
throwing chairs at each other and you know all that,
And then Jerry exactly, and then I met him and

(41:24):
I how could you not really, He's just he was
such a mint.

Speaker 1 (41:27):
She was such a sweetheart.

Speaker 2 (41:29):
I remember remember that we went to you and me
and him and Kim went to what was that cross?
What was that place in Burbank up on the hill
to have dinner and.

Speaker 1 (41:42):
Oh good, I'm stumping you and I was drinking.

Speaker 2 (41:45):
Oh that's right, okay, it was yes, And we were
going to At first we were going to all meet there,
and then Jerry said no, no, come to my limo
and he took us all we all went together.

Speaker 1 (41:58):
Are you sure I was there? Yeah? Yeah, maybe my
physical body was there, but not necessarily. Okay, what is
something something that the fans have no idea about that
happened during a live show that no one at home saw?
So many?

Speaker 2 (42:17):
All right, this is I'm going to make a maya culpa.

Speaker 1 (42:20):
Here is your languages?

Speaker 2 (42:23):
I know, huh that was I think that was a Latin.
But all right, take another swig for yet another language
has just been the Simone Biles is now the greatest
of all time among gymnasts as of this past week.

(42:43):
And uh, and Simone and I were involved in one
of the thankfully rare times when I spoke before.

Speaker 1 (42:53):
I thought, right.

Speaker 2 (42:56):
She came over well in my estimation, but I'm charitable
to myself given how much live television I've done, so
Simone and her partner came over and right, yes, I
think so, Sasha, I mean, Bruno was a little harsh,
Lenn was a little harsh, Carrionne was very complimentary. So

(43:17):
in my ear, I've got Ashley in my ear, the
producer at the time who I love. And she said to.

Speaker 1 (43:24):
Me, Wow, she's not even smiling at Carrie Anne's.

Speaker 2 (43:30):
Compliments. Right, so that's in my ear. So instead of saying, simone,
I noticed, Simone, what's your reaction to the judge's comments?
Now Carrionne was complimentary and the other two less. So
instead of saying that, I had that last thought for

(43:50):
Ashley in my head. I went, I noticed you didn't smile.
Now what woman wants to hear a guy say hey,
sweetheart smiles.

Speaker 1 (44:00):
Basically saying wait, are you pregnant? And then you're not pregnant?

Speaker 2 (44:03):
And the moment it came out of my mouth, I thought, oh,
you you know, what does she say?

Speaker 1 (44:08):
She?

Speaker 2 (44:09):
She was brilliant her her her reaction was smiling doesn't
win gold.

Speaker 1 (44:14):
Medals, that's right girl.

Speaker 2 (44:17):
Oh my god. And I was so properly put in
my place. And she had a T shirt made that
said that, and I said, oh, we got to do
a picture together. So I stood next to her, looking
very sheepish. Well, she wore that wonderful shirt. We put
that on social media and everything. But that was one
time when I wished I had taken a beat translated

(44:39):
what I heard in my ear and put it in
my own words. But instead I said.

Speaker 1 (44:42):
Hey, it's smiling. Hey sweethead, Hey, come on, honey, come on,
what's the problem.

Speaker 2 (44:46):
What's the smiling? You know that's it because every woman
who's been told to smile by some jackass guy.

Speaker 1 (44:51):
Yeah, you're lucky you don't get clocked.

Speaker 2 (44:53):
Yeah, exactly or canceled. I guess it wasn't. It wasn't
the trend.

Speaker 1 (44:57):
Then, speaking of your pieces, how annoying is that?

Speaker 2 (45:01):
Well? I asked, and most of them were very good
about keeping anything to a minimum, like, for example, when
Nancy Grace had the wardrobe, I hear or block camera
Neville showing you know, I'm getting short because whoever was
it's hard for me to know who was in it
whatever time. But yeah, so because I remember when I

(45:23):
was feeling it on Good Morning America one time, and
I had a very chatty producer in the booth and
I was interviewing somebody on live TV, and so I
actually took it out on live television. I said, would
you repeat that answer, because they're really chatty in there.

Speaker 1 (45:42):
That's a good way of doing it. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
I don't know how. I can almost see when they're
chatty in the hosts years in general, whether it's dancing
stars or whatever. Because you tell they're not they're not here,
they're not listening. You check out a bit. Yeah, I
mean that must be really difficult. It is, Yeah, it is.

Speaker 2 (46:01):
And and I that's why I'm as I say, I'm
charitable to myself, because in all the years I did
the show, I can think of about three or four
occasions when I thought, oh ship, why did I say that?
Like the Simone one Simone Biles one is is my
number one?

Speaker 1 (46:16):
Yeah? What else?

Speaker 2 (46:18):
Oh Whitney?

Speaker 1 (46:20):
Oh my god, yes I remember this. It made the news.

Speaker 2 (46:24):
Yeah, that's right. So and even Sarah Silverman made some
sort of comment about what the hell Sarah come on?
And yeah. So it was like.

Speaker 1 (46:35):
Who was who was her dancing with? Like my love?

Speaker 2 (46:40):
Frank I think, And Frankie said, I lost, I lost
control of I lost. Yeah, I lost control of of
Whitney because he couldn't keep the steps up. And I
said I said something, Well, you're not the first guy
to say that. You know, she's Mormon, and she's Mormon,
and you know, to me, I'm just not the first.

Speaker 1 (47:02):
I'm doing broad show over here, it would have been
fine to me, but.

Speaker 2 (47:05):
Right exactly, it's like a location, location location right.

Speaker 1 (47:11):
Wait was she offended?

Speaker 2 (47:13):
Uh? She was, yeah, I think to some degree. And
it got a gasp in the audience, and I immediately thought, okay,
shouldn't have said that.

Speaker 1 (47:21):
Did you get any hate from people in Utah?

Speaker 2 (47:24):
I don't know, man, you know you get you got
to let that ship roll off your back. I mean,
you're doing a live show every week.

Speaker 1 (47:31):
Come on, if you do a podcast like this, you
just got to let it roll off your back.

Speaker 2 (47:35):
I kind of do. I mean because I and I
almost put this in my in my Instagram message to
you because it really pissed me off that you were
getting some heat for this.

Speaker 1 (47:45):
It's bad. It's just like you can get a life.

Speaker 2 (47:49):
Relax if you don't like it, don't listen, don't watch,
move on, you know. But people get their rocks off,
you know, typing these incendiary things.

Speaker 1 (47:59):
How to show you a pro dancer came at me?

Speaker 2 (48:03):
Oh really yeah, well tough.

Speaker 1 (48:07):
But like really though, like I just don't think anyone's
listening to it, meaning like the person the people who
are coming at me obviously are assuming assuming that this
is me bad mounting the show, which it isn't. Absolutely
not right right, I mean we by any means, yeah,

(48:29):
I'm not disparaging the show.

Speaker 2 (48:31):
I have often said that dancing was the real great
gift of my career. I still feel that.

Speaker 1 (48:37):
Oh my god, I definitely I'm grateful. I mean, don't
bite the hand that feeds you. That fed you, you know.

Speaker 2 (48:46):
Are the people I won't work with again.

Speaker 1 (48:48):
Absolutely absolutely yeah.

Speaker 2 (48:51):
Yeah. But is that is that the major takeaway?

Speaker 1 (48:54):
Not at all, not even the little What was your
major takeaway?

Speaker 2 (48:58):
How wonderful it was? I mean for all but the
last year or two, it really was just you know,
and those parties I threw for you guys mid season.
I used to love doing that.

Speaker 1 (49:11):
Do you remember do you remember that blackout, that fainting session?

Speaker 2 (49:15):
Well, I remember there were I remember Conrad chewing me
out when I could.

Speaker 1 (49:21):
Make tell our listeners what these parties are because they
have no idea. Here was a thing.

Speaker 2 (49:26):
And I'll give you the whole history of how the
parties came to be. Back when the show was at
its zenith, we would do, of course, the two hours
on Monday, and then we would do the result show,
which usually ran at nine o'clock Eastern times, so there
was that eight o'clock hour that for a number of
years they would fill with the recap show of the

(49:49):
previous night.

Speaker 1 (49:50):
Right.

Speaker 2 (49:51):
So the way that worked was we sign off the
live show Monday, I would run into my dressing room
change into another suit which looked exactly like the suit
I just had. I mean, all I had was twenty
eight seasons of dark.

Speaker 1 (50:05):
Suits, and that was your choice.

Speaker 2 (50:08):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, I want to wear.

Speaker 1 (50:09):
A rhyinestone suit.

Speaker 2 (50:11):
I tried, Oh no, no, yeah, that's right. And then
I'd run back out and whatever audience remained. They would
try to keep some of the audience there, and I
would just rattle off intros to different clips, right, which
took me a grand total, Yes, exactly right. It took
me a grand total of about ten or fifteen minutes.
But because of the way my contract was structured, they

(50:32):
had to pay me the same rate as if it
was a full live hour of television.

Speaker 1 (50:37):
So how much was that?

Speaker 2 (50:39):
It was substantial? So being me, I thought, that's not right,
you know, insofar as everybody else is working their ass off.
So I made it. I remember talking to Izzy Pick,
who was the co exec at that time, I said, Izzy,
I have this idea because I don't. I mean, I'll

(51:01):
take the money, but I don't feel right keeping all
of it. So how about every you know, I'll throw
a party mid season for just the staff casting crew,
no plus ones were ever admitted or if they snuck in.

Speaker 1 (51:14):
The best decision ever.

Speaker 2 (51:16):
Yeah, and so I would always earmark a good chunk
of that money towards throwing a party for everybody.

Speaker 1 (51:25):
That's so sweet of you. I mean that this was
the one party we looked forward to.

Speaker 2 (51:29):
It assuaged my guilt, you.

Speaker 1 (51:32):
Know, totally. You're being of service.

Speaker 2 (51:34):
Yeah, I being off some of us. But what was
great for me is post party, I'd get these great
stories of hangovers and hookups from all of you guys.

Speaker 1 (51:43):
Oh really, would you like to name a couple without
naming names? No? I mean, you know I heard from
like one.

Speaker 2 (51:51):
One guy at the network that he had managed to
hook up with somebody on the staff, and you know,
and different things like that. You know, it was not
it was not.

Speaker 1 (52:01):
Sex and sprays hands, lots of that happening.

Speaker 2 (52:04):
Yeah, there you go.

Speaker 1 (52:05):
But I remember you had to throw one of the
dancers or troop members inside a car.

Speaker 2 (52:10):
She's such a sweetheart, and she was just you know,
I think it was like one of the first open
bar parties she had been to.

Speaker 1 (52:17):
No, she's only she's like twenty pounds.

Speaker 2 (52:20):
That's yeah, she was god because at one point I
just wanted to make sure she got home safe. And Kim,
one of our producers, got in the back seat. Yeah. Yes,
then Kim Kim Kilby and I picked up this dancer,
literally picked her up and threw her into the back
seat and just to make sure she got home safe.

Speaker 1 (52:41):
So that's how we do lifts, Tom, you see dead
lifts literally, that's right. I remember one time I had
to miss your mid season party. I was pissed off
because that was like, like you said, it was only
for cast and crew, and normally for these rap parties
it's everyone plus ten you've never seen before, my mother
and her Filipina nurses and my people who say they're

(53:03):
my aunt and not my aunts, you know, and it's
like and it's a it's a whole like photo op.

Speaker 2 (53:08):
And I never enjoy never enjoyed the wrap party.

Speaker 1 (53:11):
But Tom one time rented out like stk on Los
Sienaga one time rented out Sunset like my next sunset tower,
I forgot one Sunset. It was called One Sunset. I
remember lots of footage from that night.

Speaker 2 (53:26):
Let me tell you, uh, in the interest of complete candor,
so there was one party and this was the one
that Conrad shooed me out about that I myself, Uh.
I tend not to overindulge too much, but I did

(53:46):
that night. And if you yeah, if you recall, One
Sunset had a staircase getting down to the vallet so
and the paparazzi, knowing we were having the party, was
all out there. So I went in to pure technique
mode and I thought, all right, I got it. There's
like TMZ and all this, and I'll just make sure
that i'm you know, focused enough and say something live

(54:08):
and silly. And there was some other staff member walking
out with me, and so we get to the staircase
and Papa he Tom and the person standing next to
me trips and rolls down the stairs a few stairs,
and all the cameras go to him and it ran

(54:28):
on TMZ, if I recall correctly as almost a real
life America's Funniest video. And I don't know who that
staff member was. But they took the focus off me
and I got into my car and I'm not proud
to say this, and it never happened again. I drove, Yeah,
and I cannot remember which route I took.

Speaker 1 (54:48):
Yeah, I'm so sorry, but this was before Uber and
I also drove that night on the other side of
Laurel Canyon. Oh yeah, I might sadly, you've got on
Laurel Kid.

Speaker 2 (55:01):
I remember. I remember admitting that to Khan and he said, oh,
you can never do that again.

Speaker 1 (55:07):
We'll have a driver for you or whatever, but do
not do that.

Speaker 2 (55:11):
And you know you can't argue with that.

Speaker 1 (55:12):
It was stupid. Well, the same Conrad who also told
me back in my clubbing days when I was on
TMZ every morning, find the back door, shall we? We
should find the back door. Like he wasn't even mad
that I was going out seven nights a week and
getting sloshed. And also this was before Uber, so I
was driving my Silver Lexus around and like, honestly, anyway,

(55:36):
I'm happy we're alive. Conrad was playing Daddy Bear over there.
But mind you, he also got a little just kidding.
Oh yeah, look, I mean he had a cab.

Speaker 2 (55:47):
He was smart enough to make plans ahead of time.

Speaker 1 (55:50):
Yeah, I think that this is what makes this show
so special is that not every I think show can
actually talk about these types of memories. Like, I think
there was a point in time where we were all
really close and we were all grateful for being there. Like,
I think it literally, what do you think shifted? I

(56:11):
guess because, like I do, believe the heart of the
show maybe now it's slowly coming back because it obviously
has a lot to do with the executives, but it
also has a lot to do with a camaraderie between
the cast members.

Speaker 2 (56:23):
Yeah, I think they've You know, if if I had
gone to the full thirty season, so I was asked
to leave two seasons, shy at that, but would I
would have left after the thirtieth anyway? Oh well yeah,
because that's what I did with videos too. I went
to twenty five. I wanted to get to a certain

(56:45):
landmark season. I had done the show for fifteen years.
It was coming up to the twenty fifth anniversary. I decided,
that's good, that's a good place to tie a bow
on it. And Bob Sackett, god bless him, he did
a lovely little button with me. At the end of
that final afe. So with that same philosophy about dancing,

(57:06):
I had a contract taking me to season thirty and
I knew that was when I'd hang it up, regardless
of whether the show continued. If I had gone to
season thirty and Alfonso and Julianne took over season thirty one,
I could not have been happier. And so that's why
I'm thrilled that they're.

Speaker 1 (57:25):
Doing it now. Do you think it's too late?

Speaker 2 (57:28):
It's hard to again back. It goes back to my
whole talk about the nature of network television. It's not
what it used to be, and it would be It'd
be no fault of theirs if it only lasts another
couple of seasons because it's just the nature of network TV.
But in terms of I think, in terms of that
family feeling that we had in those early seasons, I

(57:49):
think they've gotten that back as much as they can.
With Derek as the judge there in Len's place, and
with Julianne and Alfonso, I think I think it's as
close as it could be to what it was when
I was there with Aaron and broken everybody totally.

Speaker 1 (58:06):
And do you think that in a way when you
do that, like when there is like, look, we change,
nothing stays the same in general, right, like everything evolves.
But do you think that at some point that it
could actually hurt? Like do we did we lose because like,
at the end of the day, our demo wasn't necessarily
the eighteen to forty nine, like it's old at all. Yeah,
I was older. Yeah, it's more mine age. So and

(58:29):
you know, also, so what I'm trying to say is
that there's a sense for people who are not generalizing.
I'm just saying I have it too, Like we like
to see familiar things, like I don't like to see
the cast of friends with three different friends.

Speaker 2 (58:41):
Yeah yeah, yeah, well but some of that is you
can only be a virgin once.

Speaker 1 (58:47):
Now I'm a virgin again.

Speaker 2 (58:49):
Oh okay.

Speaker 1 (58:49):
And I'm just saying that's for another show, like it.

Speaker 2 (58:52):
Will be a science experiment. But I think I think
that after a number of years they were bringing in different,
you know, different people who had a dance background. Some
of the initial people were leaving. Uh well you know
just as contestants, no no dancers, different pros.

Speaker 1 (59:12):
Coming in from so you think you can dance?

Speaker 2 (59:15):
Yeah, yeah, And and They're great and everything, but it
was sort of changing the feel of the show. You know,
you know, the jokes I could make with you, I couldn't.

Speaker 1 (59:29):
Can't make it with Whitney for example, a.

Speaker 2 (59:32):
Good example, right, yeah, and probably shouldn't have but there
you go. But then, but I posted a video when
I was getting all the ship for that comment. I
posted a video for rehearsal where where Whitney jumps on
my back and and it's just you know, and it
was funny and all the stuff. That same show, No,

(59:52):
not that same show, but in response to all I
had this really funny video of her jumping on my
back door in rehearsal. And my ca option was, see,
even I lose control of Whitney.

Speaker 1 (01:00:03):
See she loves to straddle.

Speaker 2 (01:00:05):
Yeah, well I don't know about that.

Speaker 1 (01:00:08):
But save a horse, ride a cowboy, save a horse
ride bergeron.

Speaker 2 (01:00:12):
Yeah, there you go. There you go.

Speaker 1 (01:00:14):
Something about dancers.

Speaker 2 (01:00:15):
The only time, because you asked very early on if
Lois was my wife. Lois was uncomfortable with me being
around all you scantily clad gorgeous women.

Speaker 1 (01:00:25):
Put me in that group. Well you you're gorgeous woman, scantily.

Speaker 2 (01:00:31):
You see you were scandally, but and also scantily to
look up. But the only time Lois ever got really
uh perturbed was when Kirsty Ally locked lips with me
the day after I won an Emmy.

Speaker 1 (01:00:46):
What rest in peace? So many people have passed away.

Speaker 2 (01:00:49):
I know, I know, that's what. That's how time.

Speaker 1 (01:00:52):
Works, I know me and guaranteed forever. Right.

Speaker 2 (01:00:56):
So I won the Emmy on a Sunday night, right,
And and so that Monday is Dancing with the Stars
premiere for the season, and Kirsty's dancing and with Max,
I think. And so they get judged and they're about
to go to the skybox and Kirsty grabs me and
locks lips with me. And I posted a screenshot of

(01:01:21):
that on Instagram recently or or what's the other one? Threads?
That is new so and it got a lot of
press and all this stuff, and it was Lois. Lois
was in the audience in that row that I would
sometimes go.

Speaker 1 (01:01:36):
To with the writer the Dark Corners. I love this.

Speaker 2 (01:01:39):
I would just sort of go during the commercials sometimes.

Speaker 1 (01:01:42):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:01:42):
And she didn't say a word until two days later,
she's sitting up in bed rating and she says, so,
what did you think about that kiss from Kirsty Allie
and my response, while honest I don't think was the
response she was looking for. I said that was great television.

Speaker 1 (01:02:04):
Wait was there a tongue involved.

Speaker 2 (01:02:06):
No, no, there was not a tongue.

Speaker 1 (01:02:08):
I think you know. I had Max on a few
episodes ago and he talked a lot about Christy Ali
and I did rapid Fire with him, and boy was
he's sweating. But he basically said that Christy Ali would
like be like, oh, you're so flirty, because like my
question to him and now to you, is who falls
in love first, the celebrity or the prodnswer.

Speaker 2 (01:02:33):
I would imagine it's more often than not the celebrity,
because well, because you guys are doing stuff you've done
for years since you were kids in a lot of places.
You know, you've you've danced professionally, been to Blackpool and
all that stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:02:48):
Dry humped professionally.

Speaker 2 (01:02:49):
Yeah whatever. Yeah, But so it wasn't you know, I
think you guys felt like glorified nurse maids a lot
of times, because you know, you're dealing with people.

Speaker 1 (01:03:00):
And get out of their own way literally.

Speaker 2 (01:03:02):
Yeah. So, but for them suddenly in the company of
this fine specimen of humanity. You know who's you know,
grinding up against you or whatever, always has their hands
on you to show you the moves and the steps.
I think that probably triggered more celebrity to dance or

(01:03:22):
to pro crushes than the other way around.

Speaker 1 (01:03:25):
Right, So did you have a crush on Ashley del
Grosso when you dance? Do you see how that could happen?
Like I love?

Speaker 2 (01:03:34):
I just felt bad for Ashley because she has spent
four weeks trying to move master Peter.

Speaker 1 (01:03:39):
That took you four weeks?

Speaker 2 (01:03:40):
No, she danced with master p for four weeks?

Speaker 1 (01:03:43):
And then how long did it take you to do
a quick step?

Speaker 2 (01:03:46):
We I think we rehearsed for two or three weeks
whenever I could two or three weeks.

Speaker 1 (01:03:51):
Yeah, Oh it was really good, Tom. We need to
show a clip of this. Here's the thing, just kidding,
we don't videotape.

Speaker 2 (01:03:59):
The ants was and this is why I fell back,
because Ashley went from the frying pan into the fire.
She had masterpee and then she has a deal with me.

Speaker 1 (01:04:06):
Okay, wait, explain to our listeners what this is that
we're talking about.

Speaker 2 (01:04:10):
I did. I wasn't happy with how I was hosting
the show in season one. There was a writer on
this staff who was a good buddy of mine, and
he wrote some funny stuff. But it's a live show.
Why would you have pre written jokes. You don't know
what's happening on a live show, so why have a

(01:04:31):
joke already written days earlier? And it just didn't feel
organic to me. So I remember going to Izzy and
Con and saying, look, if you don't mind, I'd like
to kind of back away from all this pre written
stuff and just trust my instincts.

Speaker 1 (01:04:47):
You know, they got me this far. It was Dave
Boone was Yeah, it was Dave.

Speaker 2 (01:04:51):
Yeah, is a very good writer, and yeah, you know,
and understood my perspective and he understood. He never at
least I haven't him in a while, but I don't
think he took any umbrage with it him how I
like to work, because we'd worked together on Hollywood Squares
years earlier. So in any case, they gave me the rope.

(01:05:14):
They gave me the rope to just kind of respond
in real time to what I was experiencing and all that.
But I thought, what would aid in my quest to
host it better would be to experience exactly what the
celebrities experience, right. You know, it's because I could intellectually

(01:05:34):
understand what that felt like, but I couldn't feel it
in every fiber of my being. So I decided to pick.
So they I said I'd like to do a dance
on a result show. They said, okay, what do you
want to do? So I want to do a quick step.
And the reason I wanted to do a quick step
is I thought it would give me comedic outs. You know,
it was an homage to I mean, there's some real

(01:05:57):
Dick Van Dyke in that dance. There's some stand alone
in that dance. And I remember Ashley saying to me
during our first rehearsal, why did you pick the quick step?
Is like one of the hardest ballroom dances to do?
And I said, I didn't know that. Lots of step
and they're quick and quick. Yeah, but I thought it

(01:06:18):
would give me the best opportunity to both do the
dance but also have fun with the dance.

Speaker 1 (01:06:23):
And she was great.

Speaker 2 (01:06:24):
And my favorite critique was Len's after we did it,
and is he gave me the out to pre tape
it and I said, no, I said, that kind of
undercuts the whole reason I'm.

Speaker 1 (01:06:34):
Doing this right, right? Yeah, why would you do it live?

Speaker 2 (01:06:39):
So I do the dance and I come over for
a sort of perfunctory critique, and Len had the best line.
He said, you know, Tom, I think that was better
suited for America's funniest videos.

Speaker 1 (01:06:50):
Oh my god. Wait, okay, So what was one thing
that you learned that you could take away from learning
this six this whole dance versus what was one thing
that you had PTSD about.

Speaker 2 (01:07:03):
Well? I was a nervous wreck leading up to it. Yeah,
I really, I really was. And you've seen me on
live TV. I don't get nervous. It's like I have
bedroom slippers on.

Speaker 1 (01:07:14):
You did they make you a tail suit and everything? Yeah?
I did the whole I forget what costumes were, like
you had a fitting?

Speaker 2 (01:07:21):
Yeah, I did the whole nine yards and yeah. But
what was funny was I would always do you know,
in the midst of being nervous and everything, I still
wanted to make Ashley laugh, right, So I would always
start by doing something different at the beginning to see
if I could. And I think at the very beginning
of the live show, because the dress rehearsal had gone great.

Speaker 1 (01:07:44):
You know what that means.

Speaker 2 (01:07:45):
Yeah, good good, yeah, bad rehearsal. Good show, good rehearsal,
bad show.

Speaker 1 (01:07:50):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:07:50):
So I did something like I touched her nose with
my nose or something, and it made her laugh, but
it also made the singer because we're dancing for the
first time. It also made the singer laugh, so she
missed the first few words of come on, get happy,
and I was waiting for the vocal and all this

(01:08:10):
is happening within milliseconds, but it seems like time slows.

Speaker 1 (01:08:13):
Down and nobody knows but you guys, right, So.

Speaker 2 (01:08:16):
My first step was a lockstep, and.

Speaker 1 (01:08:19):
Oh wow, I'm impressed.

Speaker 2 (01:08:21):
So was I that I did it, just by wrote
when I saw it played back, because I did watch
that one back. I actually did the lockstep without the vocal,
and we continued on with the dance and then the
singer went, oh my god, I gotta sing. But I
made her laugh and she forgot we were It's amazing.

Speaker 1 (01:08:39):
So then you obviously did this, and then you had
a newfound respect for every single person, except you had
more than three days to rehearse it.

Speaker 2 (01:08:47):
Yes, yeah, no, I did. I mean I didn't have
I didn't because I knew I wasn't going to be
able to keep up the same schedule as you guys did,
because it wasn't all I.

Speaker 1 (01:08:58):
Was doing at the time. Do Samantha Harris also do this? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (01:09:01):
Well that was funny. After I did, I think she
felt like, well, I want to do it as too,
of course, And so she did a jive and could
you know how for that? Yeah, Sath you did a
few weeks later. But and she might have a daughter
named Samantha, so I would often say, hey, Sam, and
she never liked that. She didn't like to be called Sam,
so I'd have to watch myself. But you know, Samantha

(01:09:25):
was sort of an energetic, yes, highly paffeinated person. Yes,
and her jive it was the only jive I saw
in twenty eight seasons that I thought needed to slow down.

Speaker 1 (01:09:38):
Oh my god. Have you ever seen her the opposite though,
because you know, like I always wonder what people are
like behind closed doors when they're that yeah high energy?

Speaker 2 (01:09:46):
No, no, no, she was always, uh, you know, just
ready to go and full of energy.

Speaker 1 (01:09:52):
Yeah, yeah, kiss Mary. Kill Samantha Harris, Broke, Burke, Aaron
Andrews Well, I would kill none of them. Oh, come on, no,
I'm sorry, I would kill you.

Speaker 2 (01:10:03):
To have to.

Speaker 1 (01:10:04):
Well, all right, friendly game.

Speaker 2 (01:10:07):
So kiss Mary kill correct uh.

Speaker 1 (01:10:11):
Oh, because we got about nine more of those, so
all right, friendly.

Speaker 2 (01:10:17):
All right, I'm sorry Samantha to kill you. Kiss Brooke
and Mary.

Speaker 1 (01:10:22):
Aaron, kiss Mary kill Tyra Banks, all funds over Barrow,
Julian huff.

Speaker 2 (01:10:30):
Well, the kill is obvious. I would only just a
cheat kiss to Alfonso and I'd happily marry Julianne.

Speaker 1 (01:10:39):
Kiss Mary, kill Carrie and Derek. Bruno again.

Speaker 2 (01:10:44):
Oh, I can't kill any of them.

Speaker 1 (01:10:46):
You're gonna have to, all right.

Speaker 2 (01:10:47):
Bruno, I'm sorry, Bruno. And a cheek kiss for Derek
and Mary carry.

Speaker 1 (01:10:52):
Inn Oh cute, kiss Mary, kill kim Hershevek, Sharna Burges,
just Petere and Murgatroyd Schmierkowski.

Speaker 2 (01:10:59):
Oh okay, run the names again.

Speaker 1 (01:11:02):
So it's Pa kim me Sharna.

Speaker 2 (01:11:05):
Oh I can't, I'm gonna. I'm gonna not kill any
of them.

Speaker 1 (01:11:10):
Ah uh really yes, really, it's quick, quick sticks, I.

Speaker 2 (01:11:18):
Can't it's hard.

Speaker 1 (01:11:19):
Just kill kill him.

Speaker 2 (01:11:21):
I'll marry Sharna, okay, I'll uh, I'll kiss Peter.

Speaker 1 (01:11:27):
Good g bye, Gimmy, see you later.

Speaker 2 (01:11:31):
You know what, she's got enough. She's got enough money
now that as I was approaching her to kill, she'd
get on her private jet, go to their private island
and say.

Speaker 1 (01:11:40):
F you Tom or like or pony or horse or
whatever you want to say. Yeah, that's right, Bye bye, Kimmy,
Kiss Mary kill, Conrad Green, Rob Wade? Is he pick?

Speaker 2 (01:11:52):
Can I kill more than one person?

Speaker 1 (01:11:54):
Sure? So?

Speaker 2 (01:11:56):
So what is it again?

Speaker 1 (01:11:57):
So it's kiss Mary kill Rob Wade? Is he pick?

Speaker 2 (01:12:02):
I'm gonna I'm gonna marry? Is he I'll give Conrad
the cheek kiss? And Mills is.

Speaker 1 (01:12:07):
A dead guy? Wade or Mills? Oh?

Speaker 2 (01:12:10):
Was it Mills? Or wait? Oh wait?

Speaker 1 (01:12:11):
Say okay anyway, kiss Mary kill, Sean Spicer, Tom Delay,
Tucker Carlson.

Speaker 2 (01:12:18):
It's a three kill. That's a three kill, right there.
I take my there. That's a there's no kissing. There's
no marrying in that group.

Speaker 1 (01:12:28):
God yeah, oh my god. This were fun to write.
Let me tell you, and by the way, let me
we're not done.

Speaker 2 (01:12:35):
We're not done. Well I want to just because you
mentioned him, the Spicer.

Speaker 1 (01:12:41):
We're not We're not there yet. This ain't the end.
This is the first episode out.

Speaker 2 (01:12:45):
Of two that's right, Okay, all right, because I have
we got to get back to that.

Speaker 1 (01:12:49):
Kiss Mary, kill Emitt Smith, Jerry Rice for Shad Jennings.

Speaker 2 (01:12:56):
I love Jerry, I love Jerry, so i'd have to
marry you. I'll kiss Emmett and and but I like
I really like too. But you know I I'd make
it a painless death.

Speaker 1 (01:13:10):
Kiss Mary killed, Drew, Lache, Lance Bass, Joey Fatone, Oh.

Speaker 2 (01:13:16):
God, all three are great.

Speaker 1 (01:13:18):
Kill them all.

Speaker 2 (01:13:19):
No, I don't want to kill him all. I don't
want to marry him. I love Drew. I love Drew.
My my favorite ad libs of Drew when when Samantha
was out on the world's shortest maternity.

Speaker 1 (01:13:30):
To leave how short it was like two weeks, it
was like two weeks. To kiss myself.

Speaker 2 (01:13:40):
Well, I think it was partly because because you can
see how much fun Drew.

Speaker 1 (01:13:44):
And I haven't.

Speaker 2 (01:13:46):
I mean, but I remember he threw back to me
from backstage by saying, okay, back to you father time,
and I thought, oh my god, I love that. I
love it when people take shots at me.

Speaker 1 (01:13:57):
So I just thought that was Hello, you guys really
did pass that chemistry test. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:14:02):
No, I'm very very fond of of Drew and so
so I guess hey.

Speaker 1 (01:14:07):
Wait, we're moving on kiss Mary kill last one, Maxim Schmerkowsky, Valschmerkovsky, Gleb,
shim Jenko.

Speaker 2 (01:14:14):
Well, I wouldn't kill any of them, Hugh Glebs probably
if I have to, uh and uh, and I'll give
I'll give a kiss Dea val and I'll marry Max
to make his life a living hell.

Speaker 1 (01:14:30):
Right, he deserves it. Okay, this is the last game
of part one before we get to the Juicy Ship,
which is happening in episode two. Conspiracy theory or real talk.
You have to choose one.

Speaker 2 (01:14:41):
Okay, conspiracy theory or real talk.

Speaker 1 (01:14:45):
Yeah, meaning like it was, Is this whatever I'm going
to say, a conspiracy.

Speaker 2 (01:14:48):
Theory or we're playing Jeopardy now or something that.

Speaker 1 (01:14:53):
Hard chancy with the stars?

Speaker 2 (01:14:54):
Is it rigged in my experience? And again to the
extent that I I had awareness of it?

Speaker 1 (01:15:02):
No, so real, it's reality.

Speaker 2 (01:15:05):
I Look, I'm sure there were.

Speaker 1 (01:15:07):
Or it's a conspiracy theory.

Speaker 2 (01:15:09):
I'm sure there were saying, hey we should move this
this couple up to dance here because they rate better
in the in the minute ratings. So I'm sure there's
there's that element.

Speaker 1 (01:15:19):
But so you're talking about the order of couples, you mean.

Speaker 2 (01:15:21):
Yeah, yeah, So to that extent, I'm sure the producers
would understandably conspire to keep the viewers hooked.

Speaker 1 (01:15:30):
So who dances at first? Like whoever's first, middle, or last?
Is that how it is? It brings in the highest ratings,
you think, well.

Speaker 2 (01:15:37):
You know, it would vary from season to season, I
would guess, but they could tell that they have minute
by minute ratings, so they knew which one of you
guys were making the ratings pop and which one of
you guys gave America a chance to go to the bathroom.

Speaker 1 (01:15:52):
Oh my god, it changed every season, though, I'm assuming
of course it did. Yeah, Dancing with the Stars is
not actually live. Conspiracy theory are real talk.

Speaker 2 (01:16:01):
Well, to the East coast it was live with like
a five second delay, and to the West coast it
was on a three hour delay. And to that point though,
I would talk to the producers sometimes because we I'm
going to compliment the whole team here. We did that
show so well.

Speaker 1 (01:16:18):
Listen, guys, listen in that it didn't.

Speaker 2 (01:16:20):
Look live because it was like there were no problems,
there were no.

Speaker 1 (01:16:25):
With the injuries like when Christian yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:16:28):
Yeah, stuff like that. But a lot of that happened
like in rehearsal and you'd see a package that, you know,
but the actual show itself, I would say, look, can
I be in the balcony and you can watch the
crew changing sets so they know this is a live show.
Because the crew was amazing. I mean, that was the

(01:16:50):
dance show within the dance show.

Speaker 1 (01:16:52):
Who was directing then the Alex right, I think Alex, yeah,
I think Alex yeah. No. The people don't get enough credit.
I mean they literally make the show.

Speaker 2 (01:17:03):
Yeah, And that was the understanding of the work level
that you all went through. While I would breeze in
and host, you know, one or two days a week.

Speaker 1 (01:17:11):
Was part paid the most out of everybody.

Speaker 2 (01:17:13):
It was part of the reason I threw those mid
season parties.

Speaker 1 (01:17:16):
You should have thrown two now that I do know
a season two a week.

Speaker 2 (01:17:21):
Yeah. Now, I'm at the stage in life where you know,
doing a podcast twice a week is too much, And
you know, that's that's why because I was able to,
I was able to bank it.

Speaker 1 (01:17:32):
Dancing with the Stars a scripted conspiracy theory or real talk.

Speaker 2 (01:17:37):
Well, see I don't know how much you guys in
the No, but.

Speaker 1 (01:17:40):
Look, I love you my best balls.

Speaker 2 (01:17:44):
No, but my part wasn't scripted, so to answer my area,
it wasn't.

Speaker 1 (01:17:50):
But I know you have to talk for the talk
on behalf of the show. Well, but.

Speaker 2 (01:17:55):
I know there were times when segment producers, when you
guys were rehearsed sing, would try to move you in
a certain direction. Right, is that fair?

Speaker 1 (01:18:05):
I mean yes, no, I.

Speaker 2 (01:18:09):
Say this instead of that, or do you know, do
this or we're going to heighten if it looks like yeah, yeah, exactly.
So I know there was some of that.

Speaker 1 (01:18:18):
But so the packages.

Speaker 2 (01:18:19):
You're talking about the packages, but you know, from my perspective,
it was it was live and completely in the moment.

Speaker 1 (01:18:26):
DWTS curse. Do you know what that is?

Speaker 2 (01:18:30):
No?

Speaker 1 (01:18:30):
I don't. So the curse is when, like you know,
when we started having bachelor or bachelorette people come on
and then they would just randomly break up with their fiance.

Speaker 2 (01:18:39):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:18:39):
Yeah, Is this a conspiracy theory or real? Oh?

Speaker 2 (01:18:42):
I think it was real. I think there's a thing
called showmances, right, and a showmance, for those who don't know,
the term, is a romance that lasts as long as
the show does, but then not a day longer.

Speaker 1 (01:18:54):
Correct, most of the time, other than the Hirshevex and
maybe a couple others, Yeah, it doesn't last longer than
the show exactly. Kelly Monico's wardrobe malfunction was planned so
she could win the mirror ball. No conspiracy theory or real.
You've made enough money to never work again, Tom, conspiracy
theory or real. That's real. Marie Osmond fainting. We know

(01:19:16):
that's real.

Speaker 2 (01:19:16):
Got to you got to remember, though, I was hosting
two network shows simultaneously for a decade and a half.

Speaker 1 (01:19:22):
God damn it.

Speaker 2 (01:19:23):
How does that happen? Right? So I would have to
be a fool not to be at a point in
my life, right, I don't know.

Speaker 1 (01:19:29):
Well, I mean money is easily spent.

Speaker 2 (01:19:32):
Yes, but not by a New Englander, not by Yeah,
it's that Yankee mentality.

Speaker 1 (01:19:37):
True. The packages are scripted. We already kind of grew.

Speaker 2 (01:19:41):
Oh, can I just tell you a quick story about
the whole money thing. So, as you know, I drove
for a time of Volkswagen Beetle, right, and I can't
believe it.

Speaker 1 (01:19:51):
Actually, I love.

Speaker 2 (01:19:53):
Here at the house in New Hampshire. I have a
nineteen seventy eight Beetle convertible that I absolutely love, but
I had a more modern version in California. So I
left a production meeting. I'm at a traffic stop on Fairfax.
I have the top down. This young guy pulls up
next to me, recognizes me. He goes, hey you Tom
burger On.

Speaker 1 (01:20:11):
Yeah. Yeah, he goes, oh, man, I love afi. I
watch you every week.

Speaker 2 (01:20:16):
And then he stops and he looks at the car
and he goes, really.

Speaker 1 (01:20:22):
I mean, that's what all of us were saying whenever
we pulled up into CBS.

Speaker 2 (01:20:26):
Yeah, I know, I know you and your Tesla and
me and my Volkswagen Beetle.

Speaker 1 (01:20:31):
Oh my god, I love it. No, it wasn't my Tesla.
It was my Lexus at first. Oh at that.

Speaker 2 (01:20:35):
Point, yeah, yes, I think my first ride into Tesla
was from you.

Speaker 1 (01:20:40):
I think we had had lunch at the grove my test. Yeah,
this is when I was sober. Okay, Derek Huff being
the Golden child conspiracy theory or real.

Speaker 2 (01:20:51):
I look, I deservedly so if he was a golden child,
he earned it. I mean he's he's just an amazing talent.

Speaker 1 (01:21:00):
Judges watch dress rehearsal, conspiracy theory or real. They did.

Speaker 2 (01:21:05):
They did watch the dress rehearsals.

Speaker 1 (01:21:07):
The protester that came onto the ballroom floor after Ryan
lochtein Cheryld danced during the premiere was scripted.

Speaker 2 (01:21:13):
No, it was not scripted. And I could never compliment
security Dave More. Absolutely he had that protesters sucking floor
faster than.

Speaker 1 (01:21:21):
I knew he was it that they were gonna that
he had a gun.

Speaker 2 (01:21:24):
No, I didn't know he had a gun, but I knew.

Speaker 1 (01:21:26):
I don't think he did.

Speaker 2 (01:21:28):
Here's the thing. I know how I am when I
lose my temper, which doesn't happen often because the both
of us meditate. I do, but when I lose it,
it would have been ugly.

Speaker 1 (01:21:38):
Have I ever seen you lose it? Yeah? No.

Speaker 2 (01:21:41):
I remember one time a buddy of mine convinced me
to box a few rounds with him, and I, you know,
I didn't want to do it, but all right, fine,
So we went to the YMCA. This is years ago
and out of single and I didn't want to punch you.
I just you know, I was just sort of blocking
his punches and at one point he connected and I
went nuts and By the time I was done, he

(01:22:03):
was bleeding, his nose was bleeding.

Speaker 1 (01:22:05):
Everything.

Speaker 2 (01:22:06):
I just went into like I.

Speaker 1 (01:22:08):
Hulked out or something, you like, blacked out.

Speaker 2 (01:22:11):
Yeah, I just I got so fucking furious. And had
I known what was going on before a security Dave
did what he did so masterfully, I would have probably
taken the guy out myself.

Speaker 1 (01:22:23):
I would have loved that. Would have been rating his gold.
One more before we end this part. Okay, Cheryl never
won again or will never be a judge because she
is opinionated and a troublemaker. Conspiracy theory or.

Speaker 2 (01:22:35):
Real, Well, I think some idiots on the show feel
that way about you, but I think so, Yeah, I
don't think it's a conspiracy theory. I think you've been
judged too harshly by certain parties by the time and
by some of the people on the production. And yeah,
so I think unfortunately that's real.

Speaker 1 (01:22:57):
Oh we're going to end on that. What Okay? Thank
you guys. Make sure to follow us on at sex
Lies and spray hands on Instagram. And there's another part,
the good part, the real reason why Thomas Bergeron is

(01:23:18):
here today. Stay tuned until next time. Make sure you
guys follow us at sex Lies and spray hands on
our Instagram handle and make sure your comment. Let me
know who you want me to interview. What do you
all think? Let me know

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Cheryl Burke

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