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Cat Deeley Opens Up About the Future of ‘SYTYCD’ After Cancelled Season 17

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Cat Deeley may not have been able to host season 17 of So You Think You Can Dance due to the current coronavirus pandemic, but that doesn’t mean there’s not a lot on her plate. In fact, the 43-year-old just released her first children’s book. 

PureWow recently sat down for a virtual chat with the TV personality/author to talk about her latest picture book, The Joy in You, which encourages children to believe in themselves and embrace self-expression through art. As the mother of two young sons, Deeley wrote the book to help herself and others raise confident children unafraid to embrace their creative side.

During the chat, the SYTYCD host also opened up about the evolution of the competition show and having to cancel the upcoming 17th season due to COVID-19

“It’s a brilliant show that I love doing. When I first started on season two, we had to travel around doing auditions. Since we started, social media has changed the process and now everyone posts their auditions and we bring them to L.A..” Deeley said. “We started work on season 17 and it just got to the stage where we just couldn’t do anything about it because, unlike the other dance shows, we don’t have a cast of dancers. We have to audition and we can’t audition without everyone being in the same place at the same time. We looked into all different protocols and there was nothing we could do.” 

And while she hopes the hiatus is only temporary, the 43-year-old isn’t quite sure what to expect for the future of the popular series. “They [the network] are going to replace us with something else, maybe a drama,” she continued. “All I can do is wait and see. If they replace us with something that's cheaper to make and gets the same audience demographic that ads want to embrace then we might not come back. However, if they try something that doesn’t work, then we might be back. I don’t think anyone knows what the world is doing next, much less a television show.” 

If you need us, we’ll be rewatching every past season while we wait for Cat to give us an update. 

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