Dancing With the Stars is looking a little different for Season 32, and that’s on top of the show moving back to ABC. After longtime judge Len Goodman announced his retirement at the end of Season 31 in November 2022, he passed away at 78 earlier this year. As Derek Hough has ideas to honor him for the upcoming season of DWTS, Goodman’s fellow judge Bruno Tonioli opens up about how both prepared and unprepared he was, and I miss their banter already.
Bruno Tonioli, who has been a judge on DWTS since the very beginning, remembered his late fellow judge and friend in an interview with Extra. He also revealed what Len Goodman would have told him, and it completely reflects the kind of person he was:
I couldn’t speak, I couldn’t say anything for a week. I knew, he told me, but you’re never really prepared. He would say, ‘I had a fantastic run, better than I could have possibly imagined. Have a drink, have fun, and celebrate.’
With Tonioli and Goodman having worked together for 31 seasons since 2005, the loss clearly hit Tonioli hard. Goodman suffered from bone cancer, and although it sounds like Tonioli knew it was coming, he wasn’t wholly prepared.
Dancing With the Stars is not the only series the two worked on together. When they weren’t doing DWTS, they were across the pond to judge the UK’s popular dancing series, Strictly Come Dancing, on which DWTS is based. While Goodman only served as judge for the first 14 seasons, Tonioli stayed on through Season 17, and SCD has been on since 2004. So in total, the two judges worked together for at least 45 seasons over eighteen years. That is quite a lot of time to spend together.
Meanwhile, even though Bruno Tonioli was evidently somewhat prepared for his friend’s death, the same couldn’t be said for former DWTS host Tom Bergeron, who found out about Goodman’s death in an upsetting way. He previously opened up about the fact that he found out through a text from his sister, sending her condolences, and then he went online to see the many articles about it. Bergeron and Goodman worked together for 15 years.
Although fans were already expecting a new era of Dancing With the Stars without Len Goodman since he announced his retirement last year, I don’t think anyone was really fully prepared to enter a new era without him completely. Hopefully, the show finds ways to pay tribute to him that honor his contributions, and Bruno Tonioli saying something would definitely make it that much more meaningful. A premiere date has yet to be announced, but Dancing With the Stars will return to ABC for Season 32, hopefully as part of the 2023 TV schedule.