Dancing with the Stars host Tyra Banks is responding to criticism about her hosting abilities on Season 29, saying people just don't like change and the ratings are up!

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"Tyra, I feel like you've been taking a lot of heat this season, and maybe unnecessarily, just to be honest," former The Bachelorette star Rachel Lindsay said on behalf of Extra.

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"How are you doing with all the drama that's been coming your way?"

"You know what's so crazy? I don't read it," Tyra replied on Extra.

"But they show me the ratings and I'm [confused]. I think a lot of it honestly is just people don't like change."

ABC announced in July the former America's Got Talent and America's Next Top Model host would be joining Dancing with the Stars as its new host and executive producer because the show is embarking on "a new creative direction."

Dancing with the Stars now has a drastic new look after Tyra replaced longtime Dancing with the Stars host Tom Bergeron and his co-host Eric Andrews.

Many fans were especially disappointed to see Tom go considering he had served as the host of Dancing with the Stars since the series premiered on ABC in 2005 -- a span that covered 28 seasons and over 400 episodes.

Tyra said the hate "is what it is" and "at the same time, the ratings are so huge."

"I get the numbers. I'm a businessperson, so I want to understand from a business standpoint who's watching and why are they watching -- How old are they? What's their background? What's their nationality -- and all of this. And it is unprecedented how many more people are coming to the show," she explained.

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"And so I think what's happening is some people are going, 'I'm not happy about that.' But I know the network is happy because the network [is full of] business people that chose me."

Tyra added, "In some of our demos, the numbers are up 71 percent! Do you understand? That is crazy on TV! People are leaving TV and streaming or using their phones, but something about this show this season, it is a change."

"And so, why am I going to look at that crap?!" Tyra vented. "I've just got to keep going."

Tyra also set the record straight she "has nothing to do with casting" on this show and so if people aren't seeing their favorite celebrities -- including women on The Real Housewives franchise -- it's not her fault.

"Again, I think that's hate. I'm a business person, come on!" Tyra playfully shouted.

"What [is] some of the highest-rated TV? It's Housewives. I want that on this show... I know ratings. I know what rates. I have created some of the biggest television in the history of reality television," Tyra bragged.

Tyra concluded there are just some people out there who are "unhappy" and want to be "nasty."

"They're trying to do whatever they can to be negative," Tyra said. "But you ain't going to take this businesswoman down!... I think our ratings are going to be up even more this week! I think they're going to be the highest ever."

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Tyra previously revealed on The Late Late Show with James Corden that she actually didn't jump at the chance to host Dancing with the Stars and her mother ultimately convinced her to take the role.

"They called me and were like, 'Are you interested in this?' This was earlier this year," Tyra said, according to Us Weekly.

"And I'm like, 'You're calling me and asking me this? I would never in a million years think that I'd be asked to host.' So it took me months. I sat on it for months."

Tyra said she "made the right decision" by taking the job despite being blamed for technical errors and receiving backlash from her fair share of Dancing with the Stars viewers for flubbing her lines and altering the show's format.

"Every host messes up. It's just normal, it's live TV," Tyra told Us after Dancing with the Stars' September 28 episode.

"If it wasn't live, there would be no mess ups. But even on America's Next Top Model, I would mess up and tell my editors to leave it in. That's what makes things human and makes things alive."
   
"If I didn't want to mess up, if I wanted to be perfect, I know how to do that," she continued.

"There's a very clear way as a host that you just read the words and you're perfect and you know exactly how to do that. But when you relax and you keep it real, the mess ups happen, and the producer in me knows... it's live and it's real and it's better than being a doll."

Tyra insisted she knows how to "read a prompter perfectly."

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"But I also skip around the prompter to make it as real as possible knowing that... [I'm] going to mess up. It's just normal and keeps it real," she explained.

Tyra said she hit her stride several episodes into Dancing with the Stars and now feels comfortable in her new position.
About The Author: Elizabeth Kwiatkowski

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