Freeform, Disney+, and Hulu didn’t make it work for Tim Gunn to return to the Project Runway revival alongside Heidi Klum.
In a new interview, Gunn revealed he was not asked back to mentor the designers in the competition reality series.
Gunn told People he and Klum had been exchanging text messages about the show’s revival, which he expressed interest in returning to co-host. However, when Klum asked Gunn about his contract, he told her he hadn’t received one yet.
“So I called my agent and he knew things were going on, but he contacted the executive producers of this new show, and they said, ‘We don’t want him.’ And [my agent] said, ‘Well, he’s done 19 seasons of Runway, 16 with Heidi. The two of them won an Emmy together as hosts, and now you’re going to separate them?’ And they said yes,” Gunn said.
Watch on Deadline
“So I wasn’t asked back,” he added.
Gunn mentioned that his agent was contacted about having the fashion consultant make “a small cameo in one episode,” adding, “What do I do? Wave from a bus? As the designers are going into Mood [Fabrics]? Heidi comes to see me at the retirement home and we play croquet? So no thank you. And as Heidi would say, you’re either in or you’re out. And I’m out. So I wasn’t asked to join.”
Gunn noted that he was initially “devastated, then kind of humiliated” about not being asked back, adding, “”I thought, how lucky am I to have had the experiences that I’ve had over the last 20 years? This is phenomenal. I stopped the boo-hooing. I thought, it’s really throwing hubris in the face of an angry God to mourn not being on this new show. So I’ve come to terms with it.”