Dylan Sprouse stands against body shaming by refusing to tell scripted joke

Dylan Sprouse recently opened up about his decision to refuse a scripted joke about his on-screen mother's weight during his time on The Suite Life of Zack & Cody.

In an interview with Andy Cohen on Radio Andy SiriusXM, Sprouse explained that he never found fat jokes amusing and therefore declined to deliver the line. He shared this story while promoting his upcoming film, The Duel.

“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 a November 2023 appearance on the Back to the Best podcast, Kim Rhodes shared a behind-the-scenes story from The Suite Life of Zack & Cody.

She recalled that during her pregnancy, the writers incorporated a weight-related joke about her character, but Dylan Sprouse consistently skipped the line during filming.

When the executive producer intervened and instructed him to deliver the joke, Sprouse still refused.

“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.”