One and done! Tom Bergeron is one of the most prolific hosts on TV, with longtime gigs on Dancing With the Stars, America’s Funniest Home Videos, and (formerly) Hollywood Squares. But there’s one stage he won’t be taking anytime soon — that of the Miss America pageant. Bergeron hosted the event in 2003, but as he revealed in an interview with HuffPost Live on Wednesday, Oct. 22, something happened during his brief tenure that made producers wary of inviting him back.
“Here’s the thing. It wasn’t my fault,” the Emmy winner told HuffPost Live host Nancy Redd. “We were in Atlantic City, and we were doing our rehearsals and everything before the live show, and I’m backstage looking over some notes, and all of a sudden I start getting a really nice neck and shoulder massage.”
The massage, it turned out, was courtesy of “one of the Southern state contestants, who shall remain nameless,” Bergeron teased. “I said, ‘That’s a really nice shoulder massage.’ And she said — and I quote — ‘And if I win, a full body massage.'”
The host told that same story on a talk show back in the day, apparently to the pageant producers’ chagrin. “Oddly enough, the Miss America people never invited me back,” Bergeron quipped to Redd.
Not that he needs the work. The ABC star has his hands full with both DWTS (currently in its 19th season) and AFV — but he’ll be dropping the latter in the not-too-distant future. As announced earlier this year, Bergeron is leaving America’s Funniest Home Videos, which he took over in 2001, at the end of its 25th season.
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