‘Seinfeld’ Star Wayne Knight Drops 110 Pounds – And Has A Hard Time Getting Roles

Wayne Knight, best known for his role as Newman on Seinfeld, opens up about his 110-pound weight loss. Unlike many of the other celebrity weight loss stories these days, Wayne’s was slow and steady.

The comedian spent much of his time off-screen losing weight through any means possible. In an interview with TMZ, he remained coy about how he achieved his remarkable weight loss. “Everything that anyone could ever try, Drugs, therapy, surgery, and even radiation, and only one of them worked,” he said.

When asked which one worked, he played into his comedian roots, laughing at the question and saying, “I don’t know.” Later he quipped, “I lose 10, I gain 50, I lose 100, I gain 120,” and joked that his total weight loss journey probably amounted to “7,000 pounds.”

He started his weight loss journey following his blockbuster hit, the 1993 Jurrasic Park. Getting candid in an interview with E News, he shared, “I used to smoke, drink, and eat a lot, with a family history of heart disease.”

But the weight loss came at the cost of his career. No longer being the fat, funny typecast has brought the challenge of reinventing his acting persona. 

“It takes time. It takes time for people to accept you as you are, and they find out whether or not you can still do things without being fat,” he continued, “It’s just what it is. You just have to accept that you can’t sell something you’re not.”

After Seinfeld, Knight was busy in the 90s and early 2000s, playing rules like Officer Don Orville in the 3rd Rock from the Sun and Stan Podolak, the journalist in the original Space Jam. But his roles did started to dry after his weight loss. 

Recently, he guest starred on That 90s Show and voiced the platypus in the movie Back to the Outback. 

In 2014, Knight was the victim of an online death hoax.

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