A fan favorite late-night TV personality is weighing in on the public’s obsession with his waistline.
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After revealing he’d shed some pounds during season 34 of Dancing With the Stars, Andy Richter got real about the public’s fixation on his figure, a spotlight that’s been on him since his 1993 debut as Conan O’Brien’s sidekick on Late Night.
“One of my standard lines is, ‘I didn’t know there were so many ways to call someone fat,’” the Cabin Boy star joked to guest Colin Hanks recently on his podcast The Three Questions with Andy Richter.
“‘Cherubic.’ ‘Rotund.’ It was galling to me at the time,” the 59-year-old admitted.
The Scary Movie 2 actor copped to using his appearance as a “comedy trope” but joked that critics seemed unable to notice any of his other traits.
“They say nothing about my right-handedness, about my Caucasian [ethnicity], about my blue eyes,” he quipped. “They don’t say anything about my good, strong teeth, but they have to mention that.”
So, when Richter was offered a coveted spot on the current season of Dancing With the Stars, the promise of a rigorous training schedule—and perhaps, an unexpected health kick—definitely played into his decision to finally say yes.
Andy Richter Admitted He Didn’t Want To Do ‘DWTS’ at First…
That said, he wasn’t exactly leaping into sequins at first.
“I didn’t want to do it,” he told Late Night chum Conan O’Brien on his podcast back in September.
“But I then I thought, ‘No, I need to do this. I need to do this just to get moving.’ And it got me to go to the gym and do cardio, which I loathe. I started to do a lot more stretching to prepare myself,” he recalled.
However, Richter’s start date loomed, bringing with it “stress dreams” about the ABC competition series. He admitted he was still “dreading” the physically demanding experience. Of course, his mood brightened considerably once he met his pro dance partner, Emma Slater.
“I luckily was paired with a sweet angel of a ballroom dancer,” he revealed. “She’s fantastic. And there were so many people around there—from promo people to security guards to different people like stage hands—[who] are like, ‘You got the best one.’ Because she is just so much fun.”
All those hours of dance rehearsals clearly paid off. His wife, Jennifer Herrera, was impressed by his dedication to the show’s grueling schedule and took to social media to sing his praises.
“So proud of how much improvement he’s made through the weeks and the obvious health benefits!” she gushed on Instagram on October 22.
“Working out 7 days a week, four hours a day (even when he’s sick) will make someone shine from the inside out.”
That said, all of that dancing hasn’t been easy on the Late Night legend. Over the weekend, he posted pictures of “juice” drained from his swollen knee…