Former ‘DWTS’ Host Claims Producers Told Her to Gain Weight for Show

Former Dancing With the Stars host Samantha Harris is opening up about her time behind the scenes on the ABC dance competition series, claiming that she was asked by higher-ups to gain weight before ultimately being replaced by Erin Andrews in Season 10. Harris, who co-hosted alongside Tom Bergeron from Season 2 to Season 9, spoke out on the latest episode of Sex, Lies, and Spray Tans.

She told former Dancing With the Stars pro Cheryl Burke that she was once called into a meeting about her appearance, saying, “It was my interpretation they said to me, ‘You need to be pasty and pudgy.’” Harris claims that she was told she was getting “too tan and too toned,” making it “confusing” for viewers to tell her apart from the professional dancers competing alongside their celebrity partners.

“Usually you’re told to lose weight, I was actually told to gain weight,” Harris told a shocked Burke, adding, “Little did they know, I was pregnant so I wasn’t going to be tanning, and I was going to be gaining weight. So there you go.” Harris was “absolutely stunned” by the alleged request, adding, “I took a lot of pride that I was tanned and toned.”

Before she was let go ahead of Season 10, Harris said she was told by then-showrunner and executive producer Conrad Green that network executives wanted “something to look different” on the show moving forward. “They need something really different to keep eyeballs watching,” she recalled. “So, the thing that the network came up with is, ‘Well, the first thing you see when you turn on the TV are the hosts. So let’s change one of them.’”

Andrews would take Harris’ spot on Season 10, and the two would become a dynamic duo on Dancing With the Stars until they were both let go in 2020 after Season 28. Harris said it “wasn’t surprising” what happened to Bergeron and Andrews given her experience on the show, and that while she tried to tune in when Tyra Banks joined as the host in Season 29, she “couldn’t watch it.” In Season 31, former Dancing With the Stars winner Alfonso Ribeiro joined as Banks’ co-host before the supermodel exited her hosting role in Season 32. Ribeiro now co-hosts the show with former Dancing With the Stars pro Julianne Hough.