“I got fired from ‘Desperate Housewives,'” Jesse Metcalf, who starred as burly gardener John Roland in Season 1 of the ABC series, said on Tuesday’s episode of Amanda Hirsch’s podcast, “Not Thin, But Not Fat.”
“After the first season, they had no idea where else to take my story,” he explained.
On the show, which ran for eight seasons from 2004 to 2012, Metcalfe, now 47, played a teenage girl who had an affair with Gabriel Solis, played by Eva Longoria.
“Our creator, Marc Cherry, said, ‘This isn’t Desperate House Gardeners, it’s Desperate Housewives. So, unfortunately, I’m not going to be a series regular on this show anymore,'” Metcalf said on the podcast.
“At the time, I had been offered the role of John Tucker Must Die by 20th Century Fox, so I thought, well, no big deal. I’m going to be a movie star.”
“I was really devastated by that show and everything was coming to me and I was just enjoying it,” he recalled.
After leaving the ABC show, the actor returned as an intermittent guest star in some of the following seasons.
Metcalfe’s performance as a sexy young gardener quickly catapulted the celebrity to fame, earning her three Teen Choice Award nominations in 2005 for TV Actor, Breakout Performance on TV, and Best Hottie.
He took home the Breakout Star trophy.
In 2021, Metcalfe revealed that she felt pressured to maintain her figure after breaking out as a sex symbol on Desperate Housewives.
“Being a sex symbol has a lot to do with the roles I play, and my roles give me a high status,” he told Vice’s iD magazine at the time.
“But my appearance was also criticized and featured by many in the media. It was a lot of pressure to take my shirt off on every episode of Housewives.”
“You have to stay in the best shape you can, and everyone expects you to stay in that shape 24/7 between projects,” he continued. “That’s not realistic. That’s why paparazzi catch actors who are ‘out of shape’ between projects. They’re on vacation, and that includes the gym.”
