Former 'DWTS' Host Samantha Harris Reveals the Real Reason Why She Left the Show, Recalls a Conversation About Her Weight

Samantha Harris was the Dancing with the Stars co-host from season two through season nine.

While making an appearance on the Sex, Lies, and Spray Tans podcast, the now 50-year-old ET host is revealing what happened behind the scenes that lead to her exit.

Keep reading to find out more…

At the time of her departure, she was co-hosting with Tom Bergeron. When she left the competition show in 2009, she announced that it was due to increased work opportunities at Entertainment Tonight. However, this is only part of the story.

She claims that DWTS producer Conrad Green told her, “Look, we’re going into season 10, network executives have decided that they need something to look different on the show. 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.’”

“Unfortunately, that meant I was the one who had to take the axe,” she said.

Another conversation she recalled was about her weight.

She shared, “I remember — I won’t say who in the network or executive team said this — but I remember I got a note. I got actually called into a meeting and they said, ‘So Samantha, going to the next season…’ My interpretation was they said to me, ‘You need to be pasty and pudgy.’”

“But really what they said to me was you’re getting too tan and too toned that the viewers…and I’d like to give all of you listening as viewers a lot more credit then what they said…but the viewers are confusing you with the dancers because you’re too tanned and too toned,” she claimed.

Samantha added, “And so that’s confusing for them and they need to be able to relate to you as the host being basically a complete dichotomy next to the dancers,” she continued, “so we need you to stop doing any self-tanning — which I’ll be honest, I tanned as much as you guys did — and to gain weight.”

She continued, “I say usually you’re told to lose weight. I was actually told to gain weight. So, of course, I said, ‘Okay, of course, no problem. I got that covered’ because little did they know — it was too early for me to share yet — I was pregnant, so I wasn’t going to be tanning because I didn’t know what the chemicals were that would be seeping into my body and I was gonna be gaining weight. So there you go.”

Find out which other DWTS mainstays have been fired over the years (including Tom Bergeron).