Three hip replacements can’t keep Osher Gunsberg from Dancing With The Stars

Former Bachelor host Osher Gunsberg has had three more hip replacements than is usual for a bloke his age. It’s still not enough to keep him from Dancing With The Stars.

The 2025 cast of Dancing With The Stars. Picture: Channel 7/Supplied

After three hip replacements, former Bachelor host Osher Gunsberg is relishing the chance to show viewers his real self on Dancing With The Stars.

“I have hosted shows for a long time that were always about the participants,” Gunsberg said.

“I wanted to do Dancing to go, ‘Well, this is the person who I actually am - the person who wears nail polish and rides a bicycle wherever he possibly can and listens to very intense metal and does not eat meat and is sober and coeliac and is very silly.”

Added to that list is not having a natural affinity with dance.

“I know the chances that I am going to be eviscerated on national TV are rather high,” he said.

“I have spent my time in reality, I know the part I play, I know where I am on the whiteboard and yet I still want to do it.

“I am here to make a good show because rule number one, there is show in showbiz.”

Gunsberg has long been open about his health issues including osteoarthritis, as well as his sobriety, his PTSD and his mental health challenges.

The Masked Singer host Osher Gunsberg with one of the show's mystery celebrity contestants. Supplied by Channel 10.

When he signed up for the Channel 7 show, which launches on June 15, he could not walk in a straight line.

“When I first got the call I considered it for a second and thought, ‘Well, right now I am physically incapable of doing this thing, I wonder what would happen if I said ‘yes’ to it’?,” he said.

“I have had three hip replacements (of his right hip) and I have only got two hips.

“Sometimes low risk of surgery does not mean no risk of surgery not working.

“The first one did not work out, so I needed another one while we waited for things to get better, then I needed another one, which is the one I have now.

“My task teacher would go, ‘Okay, can you make sure both feet are pointing forward’ and I would go, ‘But I am,’ and she would say, ‘You are not.’

“So I had to learn to do that before I could learn to dance.

“I wanted to show my son and stepdaughter that I can’t control how well I can dance, but I can control how hard I can work and that was really important for me.”

Gunsberg’s opportunity to take part in Dancing came as for the first time in years following the axing of The Bachelor he was not attached to rival network Channel 10.

Gunsberg’s opportunity to take part in Dancing came as for the first time in years following the axing of The Bachelor he was not attached to rival network Channel 10. Picture: Supplied

“I got to be front and centre of two gigantic popular cultural moments, so separate from each other, in Australian Idol and The Bachelor - I got hit by lightning twice,” Gunsberg said.

“From the day I got The Bachelor I was thinking about what happens when it goes away.

“Ten years later Audrey (his wife) and I were well prepared for what was going to happen. It has been two years since I have had a TV contract.

“In TV it is a fast ‘yes’ or a slow ‘no’ and the yes answers were slowing down. Around 202/2022 I said to Audrey, ‘I think 2023 is going to be the last one, there will be no Bachelor in 2024, so we put a whole lot of plans in place and when the phone call came it was, ‘Thank you, I had the best time and I am very grateful for all of it’.”

“It is show business not show friends, there has to be a compelling business case for the gig to get greenlit.

“I am not the only 50-year-old guy in Australia whose industry is rapidly shifting under his feet and is finding himself too skilled and too unemployed. There are plenty of people out there like me. I can’t change it, I can only change what I do about it.”

Gunsberg has not been idle in his time away from TV - in fact he has been doing a lot.

“I have pitched a game show that I have got, I have a couple of scripted things that I have in development and a few documentaries, and I am building a live show around a graphic novel I have written,” he said.

His podcast, Better Than Yesterday, is now in its 12th year and he has a book, So What? Now What? that will be released in August.

Originally published as Three hip replacements can’t keep Osher Gunsberg from Dancing With The Stars