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Ricki Lake Reveals How She Got ‘Out of Poverty’ After Being ‘Homeless for a Short Time’
Ricki Lake’s breakout role in 1988’s Hairspray didn’t lead to the usual trappings of Hollywood success — like a big Beverly Hills mansion. Instead, the actress and talk show host, now 56, found herself homeless!
By the early 1990s, her career had stalled. “I didn’t get this big part that I wanted,” she recalls. “I was really devastated. I went from like making all this money to making nothing and had to give up my house. And I was homeless for a short time. I had to move, but it was the most humbling experience that I’m so grateful for.”
Ricki revealed she lost between $200,000 and $300,000 around this time.
“But it taught me so much about the value of a dollar,” she says. “I wasn’t getting cast in anything … because the novelty of being the fat girl had kind of worn off. And I felt like, OK, the only thing I can control in my life is my physicality and how I take care of myself.”
She went on a “crash crazy diet” and lost 100 pounds. Soon after, in 1993, she scored a gig as the host of her eponymous talk show. The Emmy-nominated series ran for 11 seasons and lifted her “out of poverty,” she says.
She and her third husband, Ross Burningham, who married at her “dream” Malibu home in 2022, recently decided to lose weight together. Unlike her previous crash diets, they dropped pounds the healthy way with intermittent fasting and exercise, including Pilates.
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