Although interior designer Doug Wilson is the bad guy of Trading Spaces, he'll don a white hat for his role as host (and de facto grief counselor) of Movin' Up, an in-the-works TLC series in which families revisit their old homes after new owners have redecorated. Is the notoriously touchy character really prepared to get touchy-feely? "I've been in the industry for years, so I've been holding [clients'] hands forever!" he tells TV Guide Online with a laugh. "Trading Spaces was really the only forum where I didn't have to hold hands!
"I'm looking forward to being a host," he adds. "I worked hard for four years [on TLC's flagship program], so it's nice to get the pat on the back and the chance to move on, move up and do other things."
That said, when pressed, Wilson admits that not everything he'll be doing in his new capacity will be all that... well, new. "I'm not going to try and stir the pot too mread more
It has been said (to us, even) that Trading Spaces' Doug Wilson hates being branded a bad guy. "I told him one time that he was the villain of the show, and he was [horrified], like, 'Oh my God! Do you really think so?!'" hunky handyman Ty Pennington once told TV Guide Online. Yet the demanding designer will risk tarnishing his reputation once again as the host of America's Ugliest..., a new series of quarterly Learning Channel specials with an insult built right into the title.
"It's okay," the genial almost-40-year-old insists now. "I knew I was playing the villain. Throughout my life, I have worked not only in design but as an actor as well, so I knew what made good theater. I actually created some of those [tense] situations. I would see an opportunity and say, 'Okay, this could be some good TV!' After all, that's what this is about: entertainment. Design has always been secondary for me on Trading Spaces."
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