It's good enough for her colleagues Jerry Springer and Tucker Carlson, but Deborah Norville is too good-- uh, make that too credible-- for Dancing with The Stars.
You remember Deb Norville. Back in the Eighties, she was the Today Show newsreader known as "the sexiest lips on television" who became the most hated woman in America for replacing Jane Pauley in the anchor seat. She soon lost the gig to Katie Couric and went on to breast-feed across the pages of People magazine.
Today, while Katie is a star over at CBS, Deb hosts Inside Edition, the tabloid TV show few people realize is still on the air. Even so, she tells the Philadelphia Inquirer that she's blown two chances to get back in the public eye on Dancing with The Stars.
"They asked me twice and twice I turned them down," she says. "I don't think it's something that someone who works in what's supposed to be the credibility business ought to be doing."
The credibility business???? Inside Edition???
Poor serious Deb. For a credible newsgal, she forgets her history. Two of her Tabloid TV predecessors, Steve Dunleavy and Alison Holloway, starred in the legendary syndicated newsmagazine pilot, Dancing in the Dark, which featured the cohosts doing a Fred & Ginger across a Hollywood soundstage. But sadly, Deb lets on that she really turned down the gig because she dreams of being legitimate once again: "It would be really hard for a network to hire Deborah Norville if she had done Dancing with The Stars." Uh... didn't Meredith Vieira host a game show?