What To Know
- Jane Leeves revealed she wore a fat suit on Frasier to conceal her real-life pregnancy, a decision she now finds controversial.
- She explained that the showrunners chose this approach because they did not want her character, Daphne, to be pregnant just as her romance with Niles was beginning.
- Leeves reflected on the normalization of scrutinizing women’s bodies in the media at the time and expressed guilt about participating in the fat suit storyline.
Jane Leeves made a candid confession about wearing a fat suit to hide her pregnancy on Frasier.
In an interview for the October 27 episode of Dinner’s on Me With Jesse Tyler Ferguson, the actress who played Daphne Moon on the long-running sitcom addressed the controversial decision that wouldn’t fly today.
Leeves, 65, opened up about Daphne’s stress-related weight gain that hid the actress’ 2000 pregnancy, during her chat with Modern Family actor Jesse Tyler Ferguson.
“When put me in the fat suit,” she replied, when Ferguson asked if there was anything she had a difficult time writing about in her new memoir. “Which became — you know, those were different times — but it became sort of quite controversial.”
At the time, Leeves was pregnant with her first child, Isabella, 25, with Marshall Coben. (They also share a son, Finn, 22.) Daphne had recently proclaimed her feelings to Niles Crane (David Hyde Pierce) in the show, making the timing inconvenient for the character to be pregnant.
“They didn’t want me to get pregnant on the show,” Leeves explained. “It was just the beginning of Niles and Daphne getting together.”
Because Leeves had “big, big babies,” she couldn’t use filming tricks like holding a laundry basket in front of her baby bump.
“It was during that time as well where women’s bodies were sort of dissected in the press all the time,” she explained. “You’d go to an awards show, and you’d look at pictures of you the next day saying, ‘Oh, too thin,’ you know? ‘Too chubby.’ It was sort of normalized.”
Leeves also pointed out, “But you look back now, and you go, ‘God.’ You just thought it was part of the job to be judged in that way.”
Additionally, the actress confessed, “I feel guilt about that whole fat suit thing. But as I said, at the time, it was just normalized.”
Frasier aired for 11 seasons from 1993 to 2004, followed by a two-season revival on Paramount+ from 2023 to 2024. In addition to Leeves and Hyde Pierce, the series starred Kelsey Grammer, Peri Gilpin, John Mahoney, and Paul Cusimano, among others.
Leeves’ memoir, Daphne & Me: My Life on Frasier (And a Bit More), is now available for purchase.
Frasier, streaming on Pluto TV, The Roku Channel, Hulu, Disney+, Prime Video, Paramount+