Dylan Sprouse refused to tell a scripted “fat joke” about his Suite Life of Zack & Cody onscreen mother, portrayed by Kim Rhodes, when the show was going on, and now he’s revealing why.
During an appearance on Andy Cohen’s Radio Andy SiriusXM show on Thursday while promoting his upcoming film, The Duel, the actor explained he just doesn’t find those kinds of jokes funny.
“There’s a better joke somewhere else unless you’re talking about yourself,” he told the host. “Like, unless it’s self-referential, which I find is fun, but if you’re pointing the finger at people and like talking about how they look, I just don’t tend to find that very funny in general.”
In November 2023, Rhodes stopped by the Back to the Best podcast and revealed that when she was pregnant, the writers included a joke about her weight that Sprouse kept skipping over when doing the scene. The executive producer yelled cut and told him to say the joke, but he wouldn’t.
“He goes, ‘I would not disrespect any woman that way, let alone this woman. You write something funny and I’ll say it,’” the actress recalled, adding that Dylan and Cole Sprouse were always protecting her and everyone on the set of Suite Life. “The fact that they, at such a young age, understood that it was their job to make sure everybody else was able to do their job, was really impressive.”
On the Thursday radio show, Cohen pointed out it was impressive that Sprouse felt confident enough to say that to an executive producer when he was 14 or 15 years old.
“I mean, you’d be amazed at what having your own show at 11 will do for your confidence,” the Beautiful Disaster actor joked, to which the host replied, “You were a benevolent king.” Sprouse agreed and added, “No, no, because I was a huskier young lad who again, really didn’t come into himself until he was like 18. My dad also kept us very, very grounded.”
