He’s baaaaaack! Two years after getting the axe during his first year cohosting the TODAY show, Billy Bush is making his TV return.
The disgraced TV host revealed to People that he’ll be back on the small screen this fall to anchor Extra Extra, Fox’s new iteration of entertainment news show Extra.
“The entertainment news genre needs an overhaul,” the 47-year-old said. “The Extra you’ve seen before is getting a major facelift.”
And it’s not only the show that’s changing. Bush, who saw his stock plummet in 2016 after audio from his 2005 interview with Donald Trump in which the now-president boasted about groping women as the host laughed leaked, insists he’s changed too.
“We all have to be able to evolve as we grow. The guy that left the scene in 2016 was already a changed person [since 2005], but I had the opportunity to grow up a little bit,” Bush told People. “Facing adversity in some way is good, and I feel I’ll be better at my job than I ever was. This is my next step.
The TV host, who also saw his marriage crumble after the scandal, admitted that he was angry and resentful after NBC fired him. “I might have been a little too into my own world before. And I don’t care about that as much anymore,” he told the magazine, noting that he’s since had time to self-reflect and put himself back together. “I was terrible at being alone, and I’ve learned to sit with myself.”
He reportedly tried to make a comeback sooner via Dancing With the Stars, but it didn’t pan out. “Billy said he would be willing to take a pay cut, and take a sum much lower than the other contestants,” a production insider dished to Radar Online in 2017. But the powers that be were not interested. Added the source: “A lot of [the higher-ups] are also sick of having contestants who want to be cast as a way of reviving their broken career, which is exactly what some believe Billy is trying to do!”
But it seems Bush’s time has come again now that he’s learned his lessons from the leaked tape scandal. “A good wallop on the side of the head makes you, changes you,” admitted the disgraced TV host to People. “I’m a better version of the man I was.”
