Ross Mathews Talks Overcoming Shame to Prioritize Health, Lose 80 Lbs.: ‘I’m Proud of My Body Now’ (Exclusive)

“I want to be the healthiest version of myself,” the ‘Drew Barrymore Show’ cohost tells PEOPLE

Not long after his mother died of breast cancer in May of 2020, Ross Mathews found himself in a familiar place: turning to food for comfort. “Cooking was a love language my mother and I shared,” he says.

From childhood the Drew Barrymore Show cohost has struggled with overeating and unhealthy food choices — but after he lost his mother, something changed. “I went back to the kitchen because it connected us,” he says. “And it was in the kitchen where I found my way.”

Instead of burying his grief in calories, Mathews, 45, made a decision: “I realized I wanted to be on this planet as long as possible, and the thing I could control is how I wanted to live.” He began by educating himself about nutrition, putting healthy spins on his mom’s recipes and making walks a part of his routine — “all doable things.”

In four years he’s lost 80 lbs., and today he says, “I want to be the healthiest person I can be.” Raised in Mt. Vernon, Wash., a small rural town north of Seattle, with his older brother Eric, Mathews says two things stood out about him: “I was porky, and I was outrageously gay.” But he was also “blissfully unaware” of being treated differently.

“We were surrounded by farms, and I was much more Belle in Beauty and the Beast — ‘Good day! Bonjour!’— than I was a rugged farmer. But I loved my growing up. I had so many friends, and I had great parents.”

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Both his mom and his dad worked in the school system (his mom handled school accounts, and his dad was a mechanic for the district), and money was tight. As a result, they’d often turn to cheap and filling foods.

“We were getting by, but if you’re struggling to put food on the table, there’s not a conversation about what kind of food it is. You just eat it. My mom would buy 10 packs of ramen noodles for a dollar, and I’d make three as a snack before dinner, thinking, ‘30 cents. Great.’ ”

He was 10 before he remembers anyone mentioning his weight. His mom had taken him to the doctor because of his migraines, “and the doctor poked my belly and said, ‘What’s the plan to lose all this weight?’ I was like, ‘Wait, what?’ ”

In the car afterward his mom reassured him: “You’re perfect in every way.” Says Mathews: “She was right — I am perfect in every way. But I also was overweight. I know my mother was trying to infuse me with confidence — and it worked — but we didn’t have the conversation about health. I did not have that conversation with myself until adulthood.”

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His parents were equally supportive of Mathews’s passion for performing. “Show business was my North Star,” he says. As a toddler he’d wrap a towel around his head and “do a drag review singing Tina Turner.” When he came out to his mom at 17, she told him, “Oh, honey, I don’t give a bleep. I’ve known since you were 3 years old.”

Entertaining was his safe place, and it helped hide his growing shame about his body. “I was well into my 20s when I started dating. And that was about not being proud of the package I was presenting,” he says. “I had the confidence to be in the school play but not to take my shirt off in gym.”

He remembers setting his sights on hosting a talk show early on. “I was 7 or 8, and my mom and I were watching Live With Regis and Kathie Lee one morning, and my mom was smiling and looked so happy,” he says. “I remember thinking, ‘If I get that job, I can meet celebrities, and my mom will be happy.’ So that was the goal.”

When he was still in college, he got his big break interning at The Tonight Show With Jay Leno in 2001. On the last day of his internship, a comedian dropped out of covering the premiere of the film Ocean’s Eleven, and one of the show writers grabbed the funny intern with the high-pitched voice to fill in.

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Overweight, flamboyant and unapologetically gay at a time when that was a rarity on TV, Mathews knew he needed to steel himself before going in front of the camera. “I remember thinking, ‘The audience is going to laugh at you at the beginning, so don’t be hurt by that. Just make sure they’re laughing with you by the end of the segment.’ ”

Mathews’s debut as “Ross the Intern” was a hit, and he continued with periodic appearances until Leno retired in 2014.

As his profile grew, Mathews began getting offers from other shows, including VH1’s Celebrity Fit Club. “I turned them down three times.” Then, in 2004, Mathews’s dad died of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma at the age of 59. “That scared me so much. He was a smoker and a drinker, and health was not prioritized for him,” Mathews says. “I understood I needed to get healthy, but I didn’t know how.”

He reconsidered the Celebrity Fit Club gig and appeared in season 5, alongside Brady Bunch actress Maureen McCormick and singer Tiffany. He lost 40 lbs. on the show: “The shame of failing publicly fueled the weight loss — shame, lettuce and water. But it was unsustainable. The day of my final weigh-in I ordered two Domino’s pizzas. I ate both, because I was starving, and I hadn’t learned anything.”

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In the years that followed, Mathews became a frequent guest on Chelsea Lately and an E! red car- pet correspondent, and his weight yo-yoed. “It’s shocking how much I fluctuated,” he says. “And every time I got fat again, I wouldn’t leave the house because I’d see it on people’s faces as soon as they would see me. That shame is deafening.”

In January 2020, as his mother’s health was declining, Mathews met the man who would become his husband, Dr. Wellinthon García, an educational administrator. “I was at a low point in life because my mother was dying and a high point in my weight because of the stress. And he loved every part of me in a way that was so healing.”

Two months after losing his mother, Mathews knew he needed to make a change. “I hadn’t been doing my part for my health,” he says. At the time he didn’t know much about weight loss drugs; otherwise, he says, he might have considered them: “I’ve seen so many people I know have great success.”

Instead he sought out a nutritionist and learned what makes a healthy meal and a healthy portion. “Suddenly somebody gave me tools, and I started applying them and saw results right away.”

He began by tweaking his mom’s recipes — swapping pasta and potatoes in favor of white beans or chickpeas in soups, using spaghetti squash in place of lasagna noodles — dubbing his creations “Rossipes” (he’s since built a podcast and an online community around the moniker). “I think the flavor is as good as my mother’s,” Mathews says.

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He also started exercising more — but not in a gym. “I feel like I don’t belong in a gym,” he says. “I had to find a way to move at my own pace.” Walking became his go-to, and when he moved from L.A. to Manhattan for his job on Drew in October 2020, it became part of his lifestyle. “In New York, if a restaurant is a mile and a half away, you think, ‘That’s a 25-minute walk. Let’s go,’ ” he says. “And walking the neighborhood was a game changer. I put my AirPods in and go.”

On the weekends he and García swim or walk the countryside near their home north of the city. “We’ll do laps in the pool or walk through nature,” Mathews says. “We’re very much partners on this health journey.”

While he’s proud of his weight loss, it’s his “non-scale victories” that he values most. “I walk up two flights of stairs, and I’m not even breathing heavy. And this shirt that I love, it buttons,” says Mathews, whose newfound body confidence has also made fashion more fun, especially in his role as judge on on RuPaul's Drag Race. “I’m not hiding the thing that brought me shame,” he says. “Now I feel like I’m decorating something that brings me pride.”

Mathews knows all too well that his progress can be derailed: “But this time is very different. I’m constantly course-correcting when I allow myself to indulge.” And life with his husband is a strong motivation for staying on track. “We’re both so committed to sticking around,” he says. “When you find this kind of happiness, you want to hold onto it.”

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