TLC star reportedly sacked after sexy dance at show
Bryan Bedder/getty images
If you’ve swung by TLC lately, you’ll have seen the ads celebrating Paige Davis’ return to Trading Spaces.
REVENGE: In the world of shelter porn TV, the firing of Paige Davis from TLC’s Trading Spaces almost three years ago was big news, and the shows fans reacted by deserting the made-over makeover show, with its blanded-out, hostless new format.
New fans didn’t replace them, and the pioneering home reality show — itself a clone of the BBC’s (much more enjoyable, in my opinion) Changing Rooms became just one more makeover show in a cable universe glut.
If you’ve swung by TLC lately, you’ll have seen the ads celebrating Davis’ return as the show’s host this Saturday — a change of heart made possible by a new management team at TLC and new producers for Trading Spaces. (A wholesale turnover that pretty much signals that somebody paid for their mistakes, big time.)
“It’s not something I ever would have considered,” Davis told the New York Daily News last Friday. “My departure was very bad; it was a decision I didn’t understand, why it had been made. I didn’t understand why it was done in a harsh manner. I was pretty hurt by the people who were running TLC at the time.”
In her years away from the show, according to the News story, Davis “worked to develop programs with King World and CBS, and returned to the theater world she loved.”
That theatre world was the one that was rumoured to be the cause of her dismissal in the first place, after she did a “faux striptease” at a Broadway Bares/Equity Fights AIDS fundraising show, and the New York Post reported that she had exposed her thong underwear and let audience members touch her.
It seems like so long ago, but Davis might have to do a pole dance to get noticed in the thicket of home makeover shows that have grown up like mushrooms on a misty morning since she left the show.
STRUCK DUMB: THE RETURN: Talks between the networks and studios and the striking screenwriters were supposed to resume yesterday, but it’s already too late for another 20 shows that have been cut from CBS’ roster of development deals, according to a Hollywood Reporter story. “Due to the ongoing writers strike, our development needs for the upcoming pilot season have changed, and we have released some comedy and drama scripts,” the network said in a press release.
The majority of the deals were for shows that hadn’t had a chance to hand in scripts before the strike began last fall, which makes it an “out of sight, out of mind” kind of decision. It would also make next fall’s crop of new shows look like it’ll be brutally concise – after a larger slashing of production deals earlier this month, it looks like the networks will have to fill primetime slots with supersized editions of The Biggest Loser and revivals of Battle Of The Network Stars.
Rick McGinnis
