Key Points
-
Samantha Harris discusses whether she’d ever return to Dancing With the Stars.
-
Harris cohosted with Tom Bergeron for eight seasons until 2010.
-
“It was a dream job,” she says of her time spent on the ABC competition show.
Does Samantha Harris have one more dance in her?
The TV reporter cohosted Dancing With the Stars with Tom Bergeron for eight seasons until 2010, but she hasn’t hung up her dancing shoes for good.
Harris would return to the ballroom “in a heartbeat,” she revealed on Boobalicious, a podcast dedicated to women going through breast cancer (she survived two bouts with the disease, most recently in 2024). “I mean, I love it so much. It was a dream job. I grew up in a family that loved performers. I just love to be there doing song and dance.”
Harris left the ABC show ahead of season 10 to focus on her correspondent duties at The Insider and Entertainment Tonight, and was replaced by season 7 winner Brooke Burke. “[DWTS] could not have been more of a dream job,” she said at the time.“I loved every single second of it and I’ve made lifelong friends at the show.”
Burke also cohosted for eight seasons and was eventually replaced by sports reporter Erin Andrews. For the past four seasons, the role has belonged to two-time Mirrorball Trophy winner Julianne Hough, who shares hosting duties with season 19 champion Alfonso Ribeiro.
“I think in choosing Julianne and choosing Alfonso and bringing in Derek [Hough] as a judge… it’s fun to see the babies of the show grow up and now take the show to a different level,” Harris said on Boobalicious.
The only misstep along the way, Harris says, was choosing Tyra Banks to succeed DWTS veteran Bergeron in 2020. The America’s Next Top Model alum wasn’t “the right feel,” admitted Harris. “She’s great in all the other stuff she’s in, [but] she was not the great feel for the show and it went off-network [in 2022] and all of a sudden was just streaming [on Disney+].”
Get your daily dose of entertainment news, celebrity updates, and what to watch with ourEW Dispatch newsletter.
The current 35th season has enjoyed some of the show’s best ratings in years — and Harris revealed why.
“When I was on, the big demo were really women in their 50s, like my mom and her friends and my grandma and her friends,” she explained. “Now it’s, all of a sudden, my niece was at college and my [19-year-old] daughter just started last year. They would have viewing parties! It’s great. I love being part of something that’s become such a huge TV legacy.”
Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly
