Kumail Nanjiani Breaks His Diet for the First Time Since Getting Buff: ‘I’m Literally Gonna Cry’
Pizza, cupcakes and cheesecake, oh my!
Kumail Nanjiani finally got the chance to eat some of his favorite unhealthy foods again, after following a strict diet and exercise regimen for over a year in order to get in fighting shape for his role in Marvel’s The Eternals.
“I can see that you’re ripped now. The last time I saw you, you were not, and now you are,” host Jimmy Kimmel said to Nanjiani, 41, during Thursday’s episode of his late night talk show, later asking the actor if he’d gotten a chance to break his diet after returning from filming in the week.
“I haven’t yet, but I will,” the Silicon Valley star said, adding that while he had “sort of” learned to enjoy working out, dieting never got any easier. “I have not had pizza or a doughnut in over a year. I’ve had no refined sugar in a year, I’ve had almost no carbs at all. You know what my snack has been? I tell people, ‘actually it’s not bad.’ You know what my snack is? I get a bag of sugar snap peas and I eat them.”
Fortunately for Nanjiani, Kimmel surprised him with an assortment of sweets — which were lowered down around his head on a series of suspended trays — as well as a pizza.
“This is for me?!” the actor excitedly cried out. “I’m literally gonna cry right now. I’m not joking.”
Later on in the show, Kimmel joked that Nanjiani, who continued eating the confections after the commercial break was over, didn’t have to eat everything right away.
“You can take a doggy bag,” he said.
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Nanjiani went on to explain the story behind the photos of his ripped body that broke the Internet last year.
“It was like the week before Christmas and I was like, ‘I don’t know if I’m ever going to look like this again, who knows what I’m gonna look like after Christmas,’ so I was like, ‘I want to take a picture, just so I have it.’ ” he said. “But as soon as I saw the picture I was like, ‘The world must see this.’ ”
While Nanjiani says the photo didn’t go viral right away, things “really got out of control.”
“The story that I didn’t like, a lot of people would do two side-by-side pictures. ‘Can you believe THIS turned into THIS?’ ” he said. “And it’s just a photo of me from a year and a half ago, looking how I’ve looked my entire life.”
“They’re like ‘Can you believe this garbage pooping sea-monster turned into this?’ Like, was I leaving a trail of slime behind me? I was normal looking!” he added.
And when it came to how his family took the news, Nanjiani said things got a little weird.
“I freaked out, I called my brother, I was like ‘Are they upset? What’s going on?’ And my brother said, ‘Dad has already sent your naked pics to both family WhatsApp groups,” Nanjiani said. “And then it got in newspapers in Pakistan, so I had all my Aunts texting me pictures of myself like, ‘So proud of you, son.’ ”
“It’s weird to have your aunts sending you naked pictures of yourself,” he added.
The Eternals is slated to open on November 6, 2020.
