Tom Bergeron Was 'Furious' After Hearing Donald Trump's Ex-Press Secretary Sean Spicer Was Cast on 'DWTS'

Tom Bergeron is opening up on the events that led to his bombshell exit from Dancing With the Stars after hosting the popular talent competition for 15 years.

During a recent appearance on DWTS pro Cheryl Burke's "S--, Lies and Spray Tans" podcast, Bergeron explained that in the summer of 2019, he'd met with executives to talk about the next season's lineup of contestants.

Due to the fact that it was an election year — Joe Biden announced he would be running against Donald Trump that past April — Bergeron urged showrunners not to cast any political figures in the show so that viewers could have a "wonderful escape from all the divisiveness for two hours a week."

Although the media personality claimed that the execs initially agreed with him, he later received a phone call about "who was going to be on the show."

"And this former showrunner says to me, ‘You might want to sit down for this last one.’ I said ‘Why?’ And then they told me who it was … the former press guy for Trump," Bergeron explained to Burke, referring to Sean Spicer.

"I was furious," he confessed. "At one point I even said, ‘How about I take this season off?’ And they said, ‘Well if you do that we will let you out of your contract if you want.’ That’s how strongly they felt. And that really p----- me off."

The 68-year-old admitted that his "temper kicked in" and he wanted to tell everyone that they "f------ lied" to him.

"So I wrote the statement that I wrote, that did not name anybody, that did not name a political party," he added. "It merely said, ‘I was told certain things when I was asked my opinion, they agreed, and now they’ve thrown a curveball.’"

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Bergeron was referring to a social media post he penned in 2019, where he explained the situation to his followers.

"A few months ago, during a lunch with DWTS’ new Executive Producer, I offered suggestions for Season 28. Chief among them was my hope that DWTS . . . would be a joyful respite from our exhausting political climate and free of inevitably divisive bookings from ANY party affiliations," he wrote at the time.

"I left that lunch convinced we were in agreement," he continued. "Subsequently (and rather obviously), a decision was made to, as we often say in Hollywood, ‘go in a different direction.'"

Bergeron told Burke he didn't let the producers of the show know ahead of time that he'd been planning to release the statement because they "didn't deserve to know."

"But I wanted the viewers to know this was a step too far to me," he said. "This was a step too far on the cusp of an election year."