Former “Dancing With the Stars” co-host Samantha Harris claims she was told to gain weight before she was booted off the show.
The television personality — who starred on the ABC series from Season 2 in 2006 to Season 9 in 2009 — spoke out about her time on the ABC series alongside Tom Bergeron during Sunday’s episode of the “Sex, Lies, and Spray Tans” podcast.
Harris alleged she was once called into a meeting with executives to discuss a complaint that she was “getting too tan and too toned.”
“It was my interpretation they said to me, ‘You need to be pasty and pudgy,'” she told podcast host and “DWTS” pro Cheryl Burke.
She further claimed the higher-ups told her that viewers were mistaking her for a professional dancer, which was “confusing for them.”
“Usually you’re told to lose weight, I was actually told to gain weight,” Harris explained, adding that she “took a lot of pride” in her appearance.
“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 ya go,” she continued.
Shortly after, Harris, 50, was allegedly called into another meeting with the show’s executive producer Conrad Green, who let her know she wouldn’t be returning for another season.
“He said, ‘Look, we’re going into Season 10 and the network executives have decided that they need something to look different on the show,” Harris recalled.
“They need something really different to keep eyeballs watching. 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.'”
At the time, Harris also worked at Entertainment Tonight as a correspondent and decided along with ABC to tell viewers she was leaving the show to focus on reporting.
Pvnew reached out to reps at ABC for comment, but we didn’t receive an immediate response.
Harris started as a host on the show the same year Burke, 39, embarked on her journey as a “DWTS” dance pro in 2006.
In November 2022, Burke announced that she was leaving the show after 26 Seasons.
“I am sitting here full of so many conflicting emotions about the words I am about to write…Tomorrow night will officially be my final dance as a pro dancer on @dancingwiththestars,” she wrote on Instagram at the time, referring to the move as “one of the absolute hardest decisions.”
