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Key Points Tom Bergeron returns to 'DWTS' as guest judge for the show's 20th anniversary. His return was contingent on a donation to the Motion Picture and Television Fund. Bergeron values MPTF’s support for entertainment industry workers. Tom Bergeron’s return to Dancing With the Stars came with one major condition. On Nov. 11, the beloved television host, who helmed the ABC celebrity ballroom from its debut in 2005 through its 28th season in 2019, will appear as a guest judge alongside Carrie Ann Inaba, Derek Hough, and Bruno Tonioli in honor of the show’s 20th anniversary. But it wasn’t the anniversary that drew him back. Instead, it was a promise of a donation to a charity close to his heart. Bergeron, 70, once vowed that his Dancing with the Stars days were over. But his return talks started earlier this year over lunch with DWTS showrunner Conrad Green. “Being a guest judge was something I suggested to him at lunch a few months ago,” Bergeron told The Hollywood Reporter in a new interview. “I said, ‘Look, I’ll charge you a scale, just union scale, and then you make a nice contribution to the Motion Picture and Television Fund.’ With those conditions in place, I felt very comfortable. And happily, they met my terms.” Bergeron’s involvement with the Motion Picture and Television Fund (MPTF)— which provides working and retired members of the entertainment community with health and social services support— goes back years. He co-hosted and produced MPTF’s fundraising telethons, Lights, Camera, Take Action! for three years in a row starting in 2022. The Emmy-winning host has donated Cameo proceeds to MPTF and has supported giving events, as well as an MPTF Oscars “Night Before” fundraiser that benefited victims of the Los Angeles wildfires. “What it has done for over 100 years is provide a very important safety net for all of us in the entertainment community. In front of, behind the cameras,” Bergeron told Entertainment Tonight of the nonprofit organization earlier this year. Oops! We’re unable to load this content right now. View directly on Instagram Bergeron said the MPTF was especially important in the aftermath of the COVID pandemic, California wildfires, and writers’ strikes that impacted many in the industry over the past few years. “The need for that kind of safety net has never been greater,” he said. While Bergeron’s Dancing With the Stars return will benefit the MPTF, he admitted he wouldn’t have returned to the ABC ballroom if the prior “regime” was still in charge of the show. “It was really because Conrad’s there,” he told THR. “I couldn’t be happier that the people who are running the show now are running the show. But to be honest, the 20th anniversary, in other people’s hands, would not have lured me back.”
