“The Suite Life of Zack & Cody” took a not-so-sweet turn when a Disney executive allegedly body-shamed Dylan Sprouse in front of the show’s cast and crew.
Kim Rhodes, who played Sprouse’s mom, choked up as she recalled the incident Tuesday, claiming the exec had screamed at craft services that there should be “no more junk food” until Dylan looked like his twin brother, Cole Sprouse, who also starred on the Disney Channel sitcom.
“Dylan and Cole had different body types. And in front of everyone, Dylan was body-shamed,” the actress, 54, said on Christy Carlson Romano’s “Vulnerable” podcast.
Rhodes defended the then-teenager at the time and “f–king lit into” the network bigwig, whom she refused to name.
“I was like, ‘You do not have the right to say that to a child. You do not have the right to be writing for children if that is your attitude. Never again do you speak like that. Never,'” she recalled.
“I think that was the only time I really … advocate[d for them],” the TV mom, who also starred on the “Suite Life on Deck” spinoff, noted.
Reps for Dylan and Disney Channel did not immediately respond to Pvnew’s requests for comment.
Elsewhere in the episode, Rhodes described a time Dylan, now 31, stood up for her when he was instructed to make a “fat joke” about her during her real-life pregnancy.
“He just kept skipping over it,” the former soap star told listeners. “It was, like, in the middle of a chunk of dialogue, so he kept skipping this laugh line.
“Finally, we get in front of the studio audience, and he skips it, and the executive producer screams, ‘Cut! Dylan, say the line!’ And he goes, ‘I would not disrespect any woman that way, let alone this woman. You write something funny, and I’ll say it.’”
As for Dylan’s current body image, the “Beautiful Disaster” actor told his Instagram followers in April 2022 that he has become a “meat head.”
He wore only jeans in the shirtless snap, writing, “Used to wear a shirt in the pool as a kid. So I decided in my late twenties I wanted to change my body.”
Dylan called his fitness journey a “long slog” but gushed over how “proud” he was of his progress.
Since his Disney days, Dylan has graduated from New York University with a degree in video game design, opened a meadery and married model Barbara Palvin.
