NEED TO KNOW
- Tim Gunn revealed on the Dear Chelsea podcast that he “wasn’t invited to return to the party” for Project Runway Season 21, with producers telling his agent simply, “We don’t want him.”
- Heidi Klum had texted Gunn about the revival and allegedly fought for his inclusion, but the decision ultimately wasn’t hers to make.
- Gunn declined an offer to appear in a single cameo episode, saying he channeled Klum’s own famous catchphrase: “You’re either in or you’re out.”
If you were hoping for a carefully managed, PR-approved non-answer about why Tim Gunn isn’t on Project Runway Season 21, you clearly haven’t been paying attention to Tim Gunn.
The beloved fashion mentor and TV icon — who spent 16 seasons telling nervous designers to “make it work” — sat down with Chelsea Handler on the Dear Chelsea podcast and decided to be, in his own words, “perfectly transparent” about the whole messy situation. The short version: the producers simply didn’t want him. The long version is so much better.
It started with a text from Heidi Klum. “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?'” Gunn told People. “And I said, ‘Would I do it? Of course, there’s not a moment of hesitation in me.'”
Cue the months of waiting. And more texting. And then the kind of gut-punch that even the most seasoned television veteran doesn’t see coming.
When Klum eventually reached out to ask if he was happy with his contract, Gunn had to deliver some awkward news: he hadn’t received one. “I’m a truth-teller. I don’t even mince words,” he said. “Well, I haven’t seen a contract.”
That’s when his agent made the call that confirmed what no one on the fashion TV internet wanted to hear. “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.'”
Three words. Nineteen seasons. No contract.
Gunn’s agent pushed back, pointing out that he had “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?” The producers said yes.
The rejection, Gunn admits, didn’t feel great. He was “initially devastated, then kind of humiliated” — two words that, coming from someone as measured and gracious as Tim Gunn, hit harder than any televised elimination ever could.
To add a little insult to the injury, producers did circle back — with an offer. Just not the kind Gunn was interested in. They wanted him for a cameo in one episode. His response was as elegant as you’d expect. “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.”
Using Klum’s own famous Project Runway send-off line to decline a cameo is, honestly, the most Tim Gunn thing that has ever happened.
To her credit, Klum apparently did not take the producers’ decision lying down. “She was really upset and she kept saying, ‘I’m fighting for you, I’m fighting for you,'” Gunn said. “Which is lovely of her and nothing that I should expect. And I said, ‘Heidi, just take good care of yourself.'”
Klum herself confirmed as much to The Hollywood Reporter, noting the choice was simply not hers to make. “A lot of people ask me, ‘Why didn’t you have [Tim] come on?’ But it’s not up for me to make that decision. I love Tim Gunn, but that was really not up to me.”
In the months since, Gunn has done the emotional work and arrived somewhere close to peace. “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.”
And then there’s the Emmy. “I feel extremely lucky to have had 19 seasons of the show, 16 with Heidi, and I have a beautiful Emmy sitting on my kitchen counter,” he said. “Yeah, so no complaints. I feel very, very, very lucky.”
Fans online have been considerably less zen about the whole thing. Reactions ranged from devastated to outright furious, with one X user declaring in all caps, “Let’s be very clear: There is no Project Runway without Tim Gunn.”
They’re not entirely wrong. But Gunn, ever the class act, says he’ll be watching anyway. “I have her back and I’m with her in spirit always,” he said of Klum. Season 21 of Project Runway airs on Freeform and streams on Hulu and Disney+.
