Jason LaVeris/FilmMagic
Key Points
Tim Gunn is getting candid about not being asked to return for Project Runway season 21.
The fashion guru said on the Dear Chelsea podcast that it was “devastating at first” to be told by producers, “We don’t want him.”
Host Heidi Klum returned for season 21 alongside judges Nina Garcia and Law Roach.
Go ahead and ask Tim Gunn why he won’t appear on the new Project Runway, he’ll be “perfectly transparent about it.”
The fashion guru, who served as the designers’ mentor on 16 seasons of the reality competition series, thought he’d be returning alongside host Heidi Klum for the show’s 21st season after eight years away — but he “wasn’t invited to return to the party,” he told Chelsea Handler on Thursday’s episode of the Dear Chelsea podcast.
“My agent called the producers to say, ‘We understand Heidi [Klum] signed up. We haven’t heard a thing about Tim,’ and they said, ‘We don’t want him.'”
While the rejection was “devastating at first,” Gunn said he’s begun to look for the silver lining, accepting that “things happen for a reason.”
“I feel extremely lucky to have had 19 seasons of the show, 16 with Heidi,” Gunn explained. Not to mention the “beautiful Emmy sitting on my kitchen counter.”
He added that he has “no complaints. I feel very, very, very lucky.”
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Gunn confirmed rumors last February that the most recent season of Project Runway would inexplicably bring Klum back without him.
“Heidi sent me a text saying, ‘There’s talk about bringing Project Runway back with us, with you and me, and would you do it?’ And I said, ‘Would I do it? Of course, there’s not a moment of hesitation in me,'” he detailed.
But when Klum wrote back months later to see if he was happy with their contract, he informed her that he hadn’t been sent one.
Gunn initiated a series of conversations with the new season’s producers after learning of his exclusion. The result? An offer of “a small cameo in one episode.”
He channeled Klum’s famous line from the series to sum up his answer: “As Heidi would say, you’re either in or you’re out. And I’m out. So I wasn’t asked to join.”
Virginia Sherwood/Bravo
The pair kicked the show off together in 2004, with the supermodel serving as the mistress of ceremonies and a judge, and Gunn following the designers back to their workroom to supervise the production, edit, and presentation of each week’s looks.
They both left the show in 2017 for the Amazon Prime Video series Making the Cut, which they cohosted for three seasons. Karlie Kloss and former winner Christian Siriano took over in their stead as Project Runway‘s new host and mentor.
The new season of the reality classic delivered another familiar face to viewers: Nina Garcia, who has remained on the judging panel since the show’s first season. Celebrity stylist Law Roach stepped up from guest to main judge, with designers Michael Kors and Zac Posen returning as guest judges.
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