Ted Danson has remained an A-lister ever since he played the hilariously vain bartender Sam Malone on the ’80s sitcom Cheers, going on to star in numerous films and shows, including NBC’s series The Good Place, costarring Kristen Bell. His friendship with Bell and her husband Dax Shepard led to a discovery that both men have psoriatic arthritis.
“You’ve hit the right humor vein,” Danson, now 76, told Shepard, “because there is nothing less sexy than turning to your wife and saying, ‘My psoriasis is bothering me.’”
Danson added that psoriatic arthritis “is no fun because it does mess up your joints.,” but said he manages his recurring back and hip pain through meditation, breathing exercises, and diet.
“By and large I don’t eat wheats or grasses of any kind,” Danson explained, adding that he tries to consume as much “healthy good fish” and vegetables as he can.
“People would come up and compliment me or think of me as Sam Malone or whatever, and I was always lying, because part of my brain was going, ‘If only you knew,’” Danson said. “This is not a boohoo moment, meaning life has been very kind to me. I’m so blessed. But it does make you feel like you got to hide something, and that’s not a good way to go through life.”