When Dancing With The Stars announced its cast for its 28th season, there was clearly a selection that got under the skin of host Tom Bergeron. The longtime host didn’t hide his feelings when it was announced that former White Horse press secretary, Sean Spicer, would be a contestant on the upcoming season. Spicer addressed the host’s comments on Wednesday.
Spotted in New York City, Spicer was asked what his reaction was to Bergeron’s remarks. The Blast shared that Spicer respects Tom and didn’t want to add any fuel to the fire.
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“Tom’s been a great host to this show for 28 seasons. This show is a great opportunity to be an example, how we can have better dialogue and respectfully learn from each other,” Spicer told the outlet. “I would hope by the end of the show Tom looks at this as more of an opportunity to help reach the divide that exists right now.”
Spicer didn’t take the comments to heart and wants people to come together and watch what he expects to be an entertaining season.
Going back to Bergeron’s comments, the host quipped during the live show how the addition of Spicer to the cast would be “nice.”
“The nice thing is Sean will be in charge of assessing audience size,” Bergeron said.
The reference was a clear shot at the ordeal that was President Donald Trump’s inauguration crowd, and the actual number of attendants. Spicer’s statement on the crowd size, which he claimed was the largest ever, was later proven wrong and created the phrase commonly uttered nowadays, “alternative facts.” His tenure at communications director didn’t last long nor did it entail many positive moments. He resigned on July 21, 2017.
Bergeron then later took to Twitter to put a lengthy comment out on how he didn’t want politics to come into play on the contest.
“It is the prerogative of the producers, in partnership with the network, to make whatever decisions they feel are in the best long-term interests of the franchise,” said Bergeron in his post. “We can agree to disagree, as we do now, but ultimately it’s their call. I’ll leave it to them to answer any further questions about those decisions.”
Dancing With the Stars Season 28 premieres Sept. 16 at 8 p.m. ET on ABC.