Why Did Heidi Klum Leave ‘Project Runway’? Her Exit Before 2025 Return Explained

For the first time in eight years, Heidi Klum is back as a judge on Project Runway for Season 21. The supermodel previously left the show after 16 seasons, but now she’s back where she belongs.

This season, she’ll be judging alongside Nina Garcia and Law Roach, with Christian Siriano returning as mentor to the contestants (he joined the show in Season 17 after Tim Gunn left with Klum). Ahead of the premiere on Thursday, July 31, scroll down for a refresher on Klum’s exit and why she was ready to return.

Why did Heidi Klum leave Project Runway?

Klum and Gunn decided to leave Project Runway to create their own show, Making the Cut, which ended up airing for three seasons from 2020 to 2022.

“Our imagination was bigger than what we were allowed to do,” the supermodel said in 2020, per The Hollywood Reporter. “Everything kind of fell apart.” Klum said she asked Gunn, “Do you want to jump ship with me?” and described the time as “scary,” adding, “We shopped it around and thought Amazon was the best place, not only for the show, but also for the designers.”

Klum also said that she wanted to start changing up the format at Project Runway, but wasn’t given the opportunity to do so. “We couldn’t break out of it because there was a fear,” she admitted. “Not among us, we’re the ones who were thinking creatively and innovatively about what we wanted to do.”

Gunn expanded on the decision in an interview with Variety. “[We] saw the opportunity of Amazon as a brand new threshold because we were in lockstep with [Project Runway],” he explained. We were stuck with the same vocabulary. We were stuck with the same sequence of events within the show.”

They left on good terms, though. And also, full transparency about Making the Cut and where we are today, it wouldn’t have happened without Project Runway,” Gunn confirmed. “So for Heidi and me, there’s a lot of love and respect we’ll always have.”

Why isn’t Tim Gunn returning to Project Runway?

Gunn will not be by Klum’s side when she returns to the show. In February, he told People that he and Klum had been discussing returning to the show last year. “Heidi sent me a text saying, ‘There’s talk about bringing Project Runway back with us, with you and me, and would you do it?’ And I said, ‘Would I do it? Of course, there’s not a moment of hesitation in me,'” Gunn shared.

However, “several months later,” when Klum asked him if he was happy with the contract he received, he told her, “I haven’t even seen a contract.” At that point, his agent contact the show’s executive producers and was allegedly told, “We don’t want him.”

He clarified, “So I wasn’t asked back. However, several weeks after that conversation, they went back to [my agent] and said, “Well, we’ve thought about it, and we’d be willing to offer Tim a small cameo in one episode.'”