Alfonso Ribeiro is not happy with the direction in which Dancing With the Stars is heading, having fired longtime co-hosts Tom Bergeron and Erin Andrews and replaced them with supermodel Tyra Banks. The Season 19 champion spoke candidly to Us Weekly about his feelings on the shocking move, saying he had already spoken to Bergeron.
“I would’ve never made that decision, obviously. I think Tom and Erin are the backbone of the show,” the actor said. “I have no idea where they’re going to go and what changes they want to make and why and how these decisions were made. But I think people like myself will absolutely miss Tom and Erin. It’ll be hard for me to see the show in whatever new form it is.”
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Ribeiro then hinted he would rather see Dancing With the Stars canceled than revamped in such a dramatic way. “Sometimes I look at things and I say, ‘Why don’t we just make a new show?’” he noted. “And then just make that show and then cancel the one that you’re chopping up.’” Calling Bergeron “the best host on television,” Ribeiro did wish Banks the best taking over. “I mean, Tyra got kind of her start in acting on Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. And I went to grade school with Tyra,” he explained. “So I’m hoping that she does a great job. But it’s hard. It’s going to be hard for me to watch it without Tom in there.”
Asked if he would have considered taking over for Bergeron if asked, Ribeiro said he wouldn’t have wanted to step on his friend’s toes after taking over for him on America’s Funniest Home Videos when the former host decided to leave. “If the circumstances were very different, that might’ve been something that I might’ve been interested in doing,” he explained. “I certainly would not have been interested in Tom being fired and me being hired to do it.”
“I mean, I already took over for him on [America’s Funniest Home Videos]. I can’t do all of his gigs,” he joked, clarifying that Bergeron had stepped down from AFV, not been fired like in the case of DWTS. “I never want to take someone’s job like that. …That has nothing to do [with] whoever you’re hiring of course, but because I’m so close to him, it just wouldn’t have felt right to do if they approached me.”
