Bobby Bones is reflecting on his back-and-forth with Tom Bergeron, which resulted in him deciding to return his coveted Dancing With the Stars trophy.
“I had a minor meltdown about a week and a half ago because [of] Tom Bergeron, who I love [and] still love,” Bones, 45, said on the Saturday, November 22, episode of his “Bobbycast” podcast. “I was surprised by his reaction to the question who’s one of the most surprising eliminations. They didn’t even ask him about me.”
Bergeron, 70, recently told Parade that he was shocked to see Bones win season 27 despite never topping the DWTS leaderboard.
“I have total awareness of my entire situation,” Bones said on Saturday. “It hurt my feelings so much. I have a job where I give opinions all the time. Whenever I create controversy, which I do at times, … I’m good because I signed up for this.”
According to Bones, he was hurt by Bergeron’s comments because of their past interactions on DWTS.
“That was somebody [who] was so helpful to me during the show ‘cause he knew I was struggling,” the radio host said. “I still love Tom, but that hurt my feelings.”
As a result of the drama, Bones publicly revealed he planned to return his mirrorball trophy back to ABC.
“I was made to feel I was really bad at dancing, which I was, [but] then I got to be OK,” Bones said, noting he does regret returning the trophy. “Someone has reached out to me from the network, and they said they would give it back. It’s whatever I want.”
Bones, meanwhile, has yet to decide whether to accept the returned mirrorball.
“It’s not just about Tom, [but] it’s the association sometimes. I look at that and that’s the only thing I’ver ever done where I purposefully just tried hard, worked hard, tried to make people better around me,” he recalled. “I would help other contestants [during] their camera time. … I did everything I could to help, and then for people to go, ‘We think you’re less than,’ that was my association with the trophy.”
Bones continued, “There are things where [I understand] people don’t like me because I say this or feel this way, I signed up for that. This is the only thing where I was the underdog who won, and then that’s held against me. That association kind of soared it a bit.”
Bones further revealed that he never had any “intention of going on” DWTS in the first place, but was approached with the opportunity as a way to promote his role on ABC’s American Idol.
“I remember saying, ‘I’ve never danced, that sounds fun, but I don’t plan to last four weeks,’” he said. “I don’t do anything without going as hard as I can. There was a time … [when] I was so behind that I would go and rent a studio by myself and put the phone up and watch practice and try to do it better.”
Bones stressed that he had “never been more committed to anything” as he was to DWTS — until he married his wife, Caitlin Parker, in 2021.
“I was so committed,” he said. “I was proud of myself, [and] I wasn’t as bad as I was made to believe I was. I’m not good, by the way.”
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