Tom Bergeron Reacts to Sudden Death of DWTS Legend

Tom Bergeron is mourning a major loss in the “Dancing With the Stars” family.

The former ABC host posted to social media following the death of veteran judge Len Goodman. Bergeron was the host of “Dancing With the Stars” from 2005 to 2020, where Goodman served as the head judge for nearly every season until his retirement in November 2022.

Here’s what you need to know:

Tom Bergeron Called Len Goodman ‘A Good Man’

Goodman, 78, died in a Kent, England hospice on April 22, 2023 following a brief illness, per People. He had also been diagnosed with bone cancer.

Following Goodman’s death, many of his former co-stars on “Dancing With the Stars” paid tribute to him.  Bergeron, 67, shared a collage of photos on Instagram as he recalled his many years with his colleague and friend.

Several of the photos were from Bergeron and Goodman’s time together in the “Dancing With the Stars” studio alongside fellow judges Carrie Ann Inaba and Bruno Tonioli. Another photo featured Goodman and the OG cast with news journalist Katie Couric, and there was another pic in which Bergeron was playfully sitting on Goodman’s lap as the British judge wore a Santa Claus suit. There were also a couple of outdoor shots of Bergeron and Goodman solo.

As he looked back on his long friendship with Goodman, Bergeron was short on words. “A Good Man, indeed. ? #rip,” he captioned the post.

In an interview with Extra, Bergeron revealed that he first met Goodman and the other judges in 2005 at a lunch with DWTS producers and immediately felt the “chemistry” among the group. He also described Goodman as ” an absolute sweetheart.”

“What I’ll remember is the smile… and the twinkle in the eye,” Bergeron said. “It was always one of my greatest pleasures, when we’d, you know, be coming back from hiatus to see him in the offices walking around in his golf shirt and shorts with that infectious smile.”

Bergeron reiterated that he will always think of Goodman as a “good man.”

“I put out a montage of pictures this morning on my Instagram page and I was thinking so much about what to say, and all I said simply was ‘a good man,'” he said.

Tom Bergeron & Len Goodman Had a Unique Friendship

ABC/Eric McCandlessPictured: Carrie Ann Inaba, Tom Bergeron, Len Goodman and Bruno Tonioli

Bergeron previously talked about his friendship with Goodman. On the air, he sometimes called out the self-described “grumpy judge” when he was overly critical of a “Dancing With the Stars” contestant. But off camera, they were close.

“We’re really good friends,” Bergeron told Entertainment Weekly in 2010,  per Digital Spy. “I tend to pick on the people I’m closest with because I know they know it’s not personal.”

He also teased that Goodman knew how to work it for the cameras, especially when he gave a particularly “eviscerating review of somebody.”

“He’ll honestly feel that he’s making valid points, but he’ll really go at someone,” Bergeron said. “So then we’ll go to a commercial and he’ll look me with a little twinkle in his eye and say, ‘That was good, wasn’t it?’ Not to say that he doesn’t mean everything he says, but he knows – as we all do – that we are on a TV show.”

Bergeron also revealed that he never panicked when Goodman stayed in England and skipped a few seasons of “Dancing With the Stars” to focus on his judging role on the BBC’s “Strictly Come Dancing” because he was confident that he would be back.

“Oh, I knew he’d be coming back,” Bergeron told Entertainment Weekly of Goodman in 2013. “If I thought he wasn’t coming back then I’d miss him with all my heart. But I missed him with about one ventricle.”

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