- Former "DWTS" host
Brooke Burke calledTyra Banks "a diva" in a new podcast. - "I think that show requires a lot of compassion and loving-kindness, especially as the host," Burke said.
Brooke Burke appeared to criticize "Dancing With The Stars" host Tyra Banks on Wednesday's episode of the "Behind The Velvet Rope With David Yontef" podcast, calling Banks "a diva."
Around the 22:30 mark of the episode, host David Yontef directly asked Burke, who won season seven of the show with her partner Derek Hough and hosted the show from 2010 to 2013, what she thinks about the "criticism" Banks receives as the new host.
"She's a diva and everybody knows she's a diva. There's nothing wrong with that and I'm not saying anything bad about her. Be a diva. It's not the place to be a diva," Burke replied honestly.
"Your pros are the diva, your winner, your perfect 10-score dancer who's never done it, that defines diva in the ballroom," she added, explaining where she believes attention should be focused.
Burke emphasized that the contestants on the show should be treated like the divas, adding that live shows are "tough" and "a struggle behind the scenes."
Every "DWTS" season, a group of celebrities train with a professional ballroom dancer and perform the dances they've learned in front of a live studio audience. The journey is often an emotional experience for the stars, who in the past have even suffered injuries.
Burke said she thinks the show's decision to let go of former longtime hosts, Tom Bergeron and Erin Andrews, who hosted the show for 28 seasons and 11 seasons respectively, "wasn't embraced" by the public. Banks began hosting the show in 2020 for season 29.
Burke called Banks' appointment a "tough transition," noting that the "show requires a lot of compassion and loving-kindness, especially as the host."
"You're not the star as a host. It's just not about you as the host, right?" she added.
Representatives for Banks and
Banks has received a lot of criticism while hosting "DWTS" from announcing the wrong bottom two couples during a results show to her outfit choices.
In season 28, she mistakenly said live on air the wrong bottom two couples. She later called the correct pair back to the stage and apologized for the mistake.
According to Entertainment Tonight, when asked about the mistake at a Television Critics Association press tour last year, Banks said, "I was blamed for it, and it wasn't me. And I think that's very important to say."
"So the world is angry at the talent. But there's a whole control room and things happening and craziness going on, and I'm fed certain things, say certain things that I'm told. But it is what it is," she continued. "We are a team. And sometimes you have to take darts for the team, and I took them. And will continue to take them."
In this past season of "DWTS," Banks' was also criticized for wearing a burgundy bowtie pasta dress that later went viral. Her stylist Eric Archibald told Insider in a statement that he commissioned the House of JMC dress to be "fit for a queen."
Banks later told James Corden on The Late Late Show With James Corden, "I don't have time to be pretty and in a normal dress because nobody's gonna say anything about a pretty dress."