Actor Jaleel White, best known for playing the nerdy Steve Urkel on the classic TV show Family Matters, recently recalled network executives once asking him to switch up Urkel’s iconic wardrobe to fix a peculiar issue. He had to start wearing looser jeans to hide his bulge.
White debuted his iconic character in 1989, when he was 12 years old, and played him for almost 10 years until 1998.
Going from boy to man while playing a character renowned for his innocence and childlike appeal came with various challenges, including hiding his maturing anatomy.
“I nearly quit the show,” White admits, delving into the strain the role was putting on his life in his upcoming memoir Growing Up Urkel, set to release tomorrow (November 19).
Actor Jaleel White, who played Steve Urkel on Family Matters, revealed that executives asked him to wear looser pants to hide his “bulge”
At the height of the show’s popularity, Urkel became known for his trademark look, sporting suspenders and very tight jeans.
However, the actor’s wardrobe became increasingly uncomfortable. He revealed that he was “peeling [himself] out of those pants like a banana” by the time he was in college. At that point, the show was nearing its eighth season, and the now 47-year-old actor was in his twenties.
The “bulge” issue became so intrusive that the network began receiving angry letters from the show’s audience. “It was getting uncomfortable for viewers,” White added, which is why executives decided to pull the trigger and exchange Urkel’s iconic jeans for looser pants.
“It’s getting awkward,” White’s bosses said. “Let’s take off the suspenders and lower those pants.”
The actor had already outgrown his character’s childlike persona in terms of body mass, and his voice had deepened enough that maintaining Urkel’s high-pitched voice was straining his vocal cords.
White struggled with his growing body and tensions among cast members who, at one point, made him “cry”
“Speaking like Steve was physically painful,“ White recalled, explaining how the network’s reluctance to allow the character to grow and match his—at that poin—now-adult body made him feel like a fraud and he considered leaving Family Matters for good.
This is not the first time the actor has revealed the darker side of his involvement in the TV show. He previously opened up about what he described as a strained relationship with some of his co-stars, who made him feel “unwelcome” as his character’s rising popularity began to eclipsing theirs.
“I didn’t see how I was stepping on anybody’s toes or taking anybody’s shine,“ White explained in a 2021 interview. “I wasn’t welcomed to the cast at all, okay?”
Among those specifically he mentioned were actors Reginald VelJohnson and Jo Marie Payton, whom White accused of making him cry during a table read. “I don’t need to rehash that with the adults over and over again. They know what it is,“ he recounted.
White remained on Family Matters until its cancellation, appearing in most of its episodes and earning a considerable amount of money
Despite the difficulties of portraying the iconic character, Jaleel White remained on the show until its cancellation in 1998.
One of the chief reasons for his stay was the massive amount of money he was making, with various celebrity websites stating that he was the highest-paid actor on the show at the height of its fame.
His earnings, adjusted for inflation, amounted to $300,000 per episode for approximately $7 million per season. This does not account for the commercials, toy deals, and other brand collaborations the star participated in at the time—like a cereal named after his character—which only added to his already vast wealth.
In his personal life, the actor married tech executive Nicoletta Ruhl on May 4 of this year in an outdoor wedding ceremony in Los Angeles.
Netizens and fans of the show reaffirmed their love of the character, despite the actor’s discomfort while playing him
“Say what you want, but that show was excellent on several levels, and Jaleel slayed it!“ one fan wrote.
“We loved him no matter his size,“ another joked.
Others defended the network’s decision to keep the character true to his origins despite the actor’s maturing physique.
“Urkel was known for his quintessential geeky style, and the idea of making adjustments to his wardrobe to maintain that image speaks to the attention to detail that goes into character development in television,“ a reader explained.
“It was a good idea. No one wants to see that,“ another said, referring to the character’s “anatomy.”
While some fans where surprised by the actor’s account, others took the chance to congratulate him for his portrayal of the beloved character
