Tom Bergeron isn't dancing around his feelings.
The former "Dancing With The Stars" host didn't hide his animosity after being asked about the departure of one of the ABC show's executive producers — who's also the same man who was reportedly instrumental in Tom's ouster from the competition show.
"Karma's a b****," he shaded in response to a Deadline article detailing the exit of producer Andrew Llinares.
As host, Tom guided "Dancing With The Stars" for 15 years, having launched it in 2005. However, in 2020, Tom announced that he had been let go, as had cohost Erin Andrews, who said she was "super bummed" about the axing. The hosting duties were then given to Tyra Banks. At the time, it was fairly clear that the producer had a large say in the change.
"I think it's all about evolution. I think any show like this that has been on many, many seasons needs to continue to evolve," Andrew told reporters during a panel in September 2020, according to Us Weekly. "I think changing the host was all about evolution, it was about making the show feel fresh, making it feel new [and] kind of make it reach out — maybe to a new audience as well, as well as the audience that's been there for years."
After the comments, Tom and Erin poked fun at them on Twitter.
Under Andrew's vision, the show became more of an extravaganza, and somewhat less about the dancing.
"We're not a music video," one of the veteran pros told Deadline. "We're not the MTV music awards. We're a ballroom dance show. The screensavers behind us are swallowing us. Like, this is not what ballroom dancing is. It's an intimate sport. You're missing the actual feeling from what we're supposed to be giving the audience. You're supposed to tap into our story and we're supposed to tell it through movement. You lose the essence."