Derek Hough will replace Billy Bush as the host of Extra this fall.
“The ballroom has been my stage, my home and my launchpad. Now, I’m stepping into an exciting new spotlight as the host of Extra,” Hough said in a statement on Wednesday, August 13. “I’m truly looking forward to collaborating with this incredible team, diving into this next creative chapter and connecting with fans and audiences in a whole new way.”
The Emmy winner called his new role “an honor” while expressing his enthusiasm for Extra‘s “bold, fresh new era for season 32,” which premieres on September 8, “and beyond.” He will join senior correspondent and weekend host Mona Kosar Abdi and longtime correspondent Terri Seymour.
Hough, 40, is best known for his time on Dancing With the Stars, on which he served as a pro dancer from 2007 to 2016 before replacing the late Len Goodman as a judge beginning in 2020.
Hough, who recently announced he is expecting his first child with wife Hayley Erbert, is still slated to return to the judges’ panel for the ABC dance competition series’ upcoming 34th season.
Meanwhile, Bush, 53, revealed in May that he was leaving Extra after five seasons to shift his focus to his “Hot Mics” podcast.
“Extra is culturally iconic. If I had a dollar for every time someone hollered, ‘Extra! Extra!’ to me in the airport or something, I’d buy Warner Bros.,” Bush told listeners at the time.
“It’s been a tremendous honor and privilege to front this show. … It’s now time to build something of my own,” he continued. “I’m forever grateful to the amazing staff at Extra and the executives at Warner Bros. for this awesome chapter of my life.”
Bush said he would stay on as the host of Extra through the end of its 31st season. He joined the syndicated entertainment news show in 2019.
Bush previously worked at Access Hollywood and the Today show, but NBC fired him in 2016 after a decade-old tape of him and Donald Trump having a lewd conversation leaked online.
In the 2005 audio, Trump, 79, bragged about being so famous that he could “do anything” to women, including grabbing them “by the p****.” Bush, who was on the set of his job at Access Hollywood at the time, did not make any inappropriate comments himself but was heard laughing with the future president on a hot mic.
Trump brushed off the infamous tape as “locker room banter” and went on to win the 2016 election, while Bush was let go as a cohost of Today‘s third hour.
“Obviously I’m embarrassed and ashamed,” Bush said in a statement at the time. “It’s no excuse, but this happened 11 years ago — I was younger, less mature and acted foolishly in playing along.”
Bush later leaned into the scandal by naming his podcast “Hot Mics.”
“A hot mic was the thing that led to my silencing,” he said when the show launched in January, “and now the hot mics are the vehicle by which I find an authentic, real voice.”
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