Jesse Metcalfe Gets Real About Fame, Fallout, and Being the ‘Hot Guy’

Jesse Metcalfe knows exactly how the world sees him—he’s a pretty boy, and he’s not pretending otherwise. But in a candid conversation on Not Skinny But Not Fat, the early 2000s heartthrob gets surprisingly honest about everything from feeling “underachieved” to the pressure of being labeled “the hot guy.”

He doesn’t romanticize that era of his career. If anything, he picks it apart—what worked, what didn’t, and what he thinks he got wrong along the way.

Here are the highlights from the conversation, adapted from the episode.

Did you ever feel stuck being labeled a ‘heartthrob’?

“I feel like you are afraid of being pigeonholed, and having that kind of pretty boy heartthrob moniker, it can be difficult to break out of that…I never broke out of it…I mean, it’s challenging for sure. I mean, I definitely feel like because of the roles that I took earlier in my career, I never necessarily got the opportunity to play the type of roles I really wanted to play. I really still haven’t…but it’s never over, you know, it’s a marathon, not a sprint, and I’m still striving within the industry.”

You’ve said you were bullied growing up—how did that shape you?

“I got ridiculed and teased as a child, like insanely for being beautiful…like, l don’t know, for not looking enough like a boy, for not looking masculine enough…I have no idea—just for standing out, for not looking like everyone else…it followed me through adolescence it followed me in middle school…I dealt with it in high school…I dealt with it when I came to Hollywood…it just kept coming up. It like haunted me.”

Why did you skip your ‘Entourage’ audition?

“I chose to go to a party in Malibu and not audition for Entourage. I read the script and I was like, ‘oh, what’s this,’ you know…I didn’t really think…that was probably a non-sober decision…or it could have just been an idiotic decision by a young guy who thought he knew better.”

Why were you written off ‘Desperate Housewives’?

“Well, after the first season, they didn’t really know where else to take my storyline, and, you know, our, our creator Marc Cherry was kind of like, ‘Hey, this isn’t like Desperate House Gardeners. This is Desperate Housewives. So unfortunately, you know, you’re not gonna be a series regular moving forward on the show. We’re gonna bring you back intermittently.’”

Have you ever let fame get to your head?

“I mean, I always believed that I’ve been a really kind of the same guy throughout my entire time in the industry, but I have had incidents where I felt as though I was being diminished or disrespected or condescended to in some way, shape, or form…and my reaction outweighed the offense, you know what I mean…because I was just kind of like going a little too big, you know.”

How bad did it actually get?

“I’ve threatened people before…I’ve threatened directors before, you know…yes…I just have like, lost it…I look forward to the opportunity to run into a lot of these people and make amends and apologize…and I have to many people, actually, which is…really lightened the burden, you know, I’m a little embarrassed by some of my behavior.”

What actually drove some of your behavior back then?

“It was like trauma, you know…I was expressing trauma…it was like I had a wounded little boy inside of me who was overreacting to everything.”

What’s something people don’t understand about addiction?

“I kind of was hopeful that it had skipped a generation, you know, I mean, I touched on the fact that it sort of runs in my family. Both my grandfathers were raging alcoholics, you know, my father, who’s sober now…We have a relationship. I wouldn’t say it’s great, but we have a relationship, so it’s a start…

…I haven’t stayed sober the whole time, you know, I can tell you that I am now and I’m in a great place now, and I think that’s what matters most, but I definitely slipped up quite a bit, you know, in the late 2010s…It’s a progressive disease and you may be able to go out once, twice, three times, ‘Oh, I only had one drink,’ or ‘I only had 2 drinks.’ or ‘Oh, I went home after that.’ but then it’s like the fifth time it gets you. Your inhibitions are lowered just enough that then maybe, you don’t go home early, you know, maybe you go home at, you know, 10 o’clock in the morning…but I know one thing, those moments are so…you have so much shame, you know, if you’re battling addiction for basically all of your adult life.”

To hear all of Jesse Metcalfe’s conversation, listen to Not Skinny but Not Fat wherever you get your podcasts.

Read More

• Chloe Kim Was Ready to Be Done With Dating—Then Myles Garrett Entered the Chat
• Priyanka Chopra Jonas Didn’t Just Cross Over to Hollywood—She Started From Scratch
• Morgan Stewart Opens Up to Khloé Kardashian About Life After Reality TV