Banished Billy Bush making TV comeback three years after Trump debacle

After a three-year exile from the airwaves following the release of the now infamous “Access Hollywood” tape that featured Donald Trump talking about being able to grab women by the —–” while then entertainment correspondent Billy Bush could be heard chuckling in the background, Bush will finally be returning to TV.

“Extra,” the Emmy award-winning syndicated entertainment news magazine, has named the veteran entertainment journalist Billy Bush as host for the 26^th season of their show, rebranded as “ExtraExtra” scheduled to premier September 9, 2019.

Senior executive producer Lisa Gregorisch-Dempsey said, “Billy is the consummate journalist with extensive celebrity industry contacts and reach. No one does more illuminating interviews and in-depth stories than him. He’s the perfect host as we reinvent ‘Extra’ for a new generation. I’m thrilled to welcome him back to television.”

Said Bush, “My first job on national television was on ‘Extra’ so this is a homecoming of sorts for me. I’m excited to join the incredible team and be a part of the show as it gets refreshed for a new generation.”

Bush first appeared on “Extra” as a New York-based freelance correspondent in 2002. He will anchor the new “ExtraExtra” from the show’s new broadcast center and newsroom at The Burbank Studios in Burbank, California. The show will feature a new, modernized setting at the studio and will continue its extensive location reporting from bureaus in Los Angeles and New York, and will establish new outposts in both Nashville and Las Vegas.

Bush, 47, was unceremoniously fired as co-anchor on NBC’s “Today” show in 2016 after the 2005 “Access Hollywood” recordings resurfaced and captured him laughing at Donald Trump’s self-described “locker room talk” about female genitalia.
Then-candidate Trump went on to win the U.S. presidency, but Bush’s life devolved into “chaos” after he was booted from NBC. Bush, who said that he regrets the tape, later checked himself in to a treatment center on the same day Trump walked into the Oval Office. ~per The Los Angeles Times

Bush’s television career includes serving as host of the third hour of “Today,” host of “Access Hollywood” and “Access Hollywood Live,” correspondent for WNBC’s “Today in New York” and New York freelance correspondent for “Extra.” For six years, he hosted “The Billy Bush Show,” a nationally syndicated talk and music radio show. Bush began his career in Wolfeboro, NH as a radio DJ and salesperson.

(Source: Warner Bros.)