The Suite Life of Zack & Cody was not all that sweet for Dylan Sprouse, who refused to make scripted fat jokes about his former TV mom, Kim Rhodes.
The now 31-year-old actor starred alongside his twin brother, Cole Sprouse, in one of the most well-known Disney Channel shows. The popular series, which even had its own spinoff show, Suite Life On Deck, and film, The Suite Life Movie, told the story of two blonde twins taking over the hotel, living their young lives alongside their mom and hotel staff as they learned lessons along the way.
During the time they were filming, the 55-year-old actress, who played their mom Carey, was pregnant, and Dylan felt it was wrong to make such comments about her body when he was about 14 or 15 years old. He shared during an interview on “Andy Cohen Live” on Thursday, August 1, “[I] just don’t really think fat jokes are funny. There’s a better joke somewhere else, unless you’re talking about yourself.”
He continued to express how it would only be funny if it was a joke about oneself, “unless it’s self-referential, which I find is fun. But if you’re pointing the finger at people and talking about how they look, I just don’t tend to find that very funny in general. I think there are better jokes.”
Kim, who referred to the twins as her “little men,” originally brought this topic to light back in November 2023 during an interview for the “Back to the Best” podcast, saying, “And he [Dylan] goes, ‘I would not disrespect any woman that way, let alone this woman. You write something funny and I’ll say it’.” Being a child star in a way made him more mature, so his insistence on not saying the line led him to tell the staff to change it to something funny.
The actor, married to Barbara Palvin, mentioned that during the show he “was a benevolent king” and knew wrong from right due to their father, Matthew Sprouse, always keeping them “grounded.”