Tyler Labine, renowned for his roles in "Tucker & Dale vs. Evil," "Reaper," and NBC's "New Amsterdam," has become an outspoken advocate for mental health awareness and body positivity. His personal experiences with body image issues, disordered eating, and mental health challenges have deeply influenced his work and his commitment to destigmatizing these sensitive topics.
Early Life and Career
Tyler Labine began his acting career as a teenager, securing guest roles in popular shows like "Are You Afraid of the Dark" and "Sabrina the Teenage Witch." His first series regular role came in 1997 on the teen drama "Breaker High," where he starred alongside Ryan Gosling. He is also known for his role in the supernatural comedy "Reaper," in addition to Dale, the unsure but good-natured hillbilly in the comedy / horror "Tucker & Dale vs. Evil."
Transformation into Dr. Iggy Frome
Tyler Labine is best known for playing Dr. Iggy Frome, the head of psychiatry, in the hit NBC medical drama "New Amsterdam".
Iggy's Eating Disorder Storyline
In Season 2 of "New Amsterdam," viewers saw Iggy address his body issues and how it affects how he sees his worth. In Episode 12, he says that he's going to make healthier food choices. However, when Iggy is at work, he takes to eating junk food when upset. Due to the grief he's experiencing, Iggy is compelled to overeat. Last season, "New Amsterdam" didn't name was he was doing, but Season 3 Episode 2 clarifies that Iggy is struggling with an eating disorder, and Dr. Bloom (Janet Montgomery) confronts him about it.
The genesis of Iggy's eating disorder storyline
Tyler Labine shared that the writers of "New Amsterdam" incorporated elements of his personal life into Iggy's storyline, including binge eating, dangerous fad dieting, and a suicide attempt at age 12.
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Labine shared that the main theme for Iggy, between Season 2 and Season 3, is that he doesn’t know how to love himself or love his own body.
Tyler Labine's Personal Connection
Tyler Labine's portrayal of Dr. Iggy Frome is deeply personal. In an interview, Labine revealed that he has struggled with disordered eating and body dysmorphia since childhood. He shared, “The main theme for Iggy, between Season 2 and Season 3, is that he doesn’t know how to love himself or love his own body."
He recounted a painful experience from his childhood when his father body-shamed him, leading to years of crash diets and a distorted perception of self-worth.
At around nine, he started to get a little chubbier than his two brothers. One night his dad saw him with his shirt off, slapped his gut, and said, "Oh my God, that's disgusting. Look at that thing!" From then on he put me on these crash diets and made me feel very different from the rest of my family. He built a little makeshift gym in the basement and would take pictures of me to chart my progress. I felt like the love I received was in direct relation to how much weight I lost. At 11, I'd lie in bed at night dreaming about getting liposuction, and at 12, I made a clumsy attempt at killing myself. I was a really outgoing, funny kid, but I was in so much pain inside."
Tyler gave the show permission to use his story. It involved a lot of things, including his dad really body shaming me as a kid, and kids body shaming me, and my dad putting me on crash diets and taking shirtless photos of me and like making, you know, all kinds of things. And then it all sort of culminated in me trying to commit suicide when I was like, 12-13.
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Speaking up about his character’s eating habits
Tyler Labine said that the original, the beginning of the pulling of the corner of the sticker for me on this show was that they had written in this very sort of backburner, quirky eating storyline, with Iggy, where he would be like eating all these- like, walking around with a bag of carrots in the pilot. A bag of, like, crudite, and eating that. And then, you know, the next episode, he’d be in the break room, shoveling gummy worms in his mouth, kind of by himself, you know, and it was sort of like, funny, like, ‘Oh, he’s really just stress eating.’ And then it started to become more and more obvious that that was, like, a thing they would show Iggy, like, after having like a really stressful day, he’d be shoveling chocolate in his mouth, or whatever. And I just kind of like, I said to David Foster, he was on set one day, he noticed my sort of agitation, I guess you could say, and my knee jerk reaction, a lot of that stuff was like, ‘F* off. Don’t give him a quirky, disordered eating storyline, and then not give it any attention.’ I have disordered eating. And I have body dysmorphia. And I have struggled since I was very young- since I was about 10 years old, eight, nine, 10 years old is when it began. I mean, it’s a huge, long talk. But eating for me is not something that I’m like, willing to just kind of like, poke at, you know? And I wasn’t angry at it, because most people don’t even realize that that’s a thing. So I said something. And I just said, like, ‘Well, if you’re gonna do this, can we do it? Like, has anybody ever? Is there room here to add that Iggy might have disordered eating as like a real storyline?’ And Foster was like, ‘Well, yeah, I think probably,’ you know? And there was a reason why he asked me, and then Shaun Cassidy, one of our writers and producers as well, called me and was like, ‘Hey, man, would you tell me your story? Like, I don’t know your story with what you’ve struggled with, with your body and with eating.’ And I told him, and it was a long conversation. And, you know, he took it all down. And then they asked me, point-blank, if they could use my story for a storyline for Iggy. And I was like, ‘Yeah.’ And it involved a lot of s*. It was like, my dad really body shaming me as a kid, and kids body shaming me, and my dad putting me on crash diets and taking shirtless photos of me and like making, you know, all kinds of things. And then it all sort of culminated in me trying to commit suicide when I was like, 12-13.
The actor also uses the language he’s used to refer to himself and talk about himself in the past that he try not to do anymore. You know, the language I’m trying to undo from all the information I’ve been given my whole life is like, that stuff is poignant and powerful stuff. So we’ve definitely put some of that in there. I’ve ad-libbed quite a few things where it’s just, like, my old, really, really detrimental language that I used to talk about myself, not loving myself, not knowing my worth, you know, all that stuff.
Seeking Help and Finding Sobriety
Unlike his character on 'New Amsterdam,' Tyler has sought out help for his eating disorder.
Tyler Labine sought help for his eating disorder as a teen and was diagnosed with body dysmorphia. He turned to alcohol to cope with the insults and pressures of playing "funny fat guy" characters. In his late 30s, Labine sought help and has been sober for over three years. He credits a 12-step program, antianxiety medication, and talk therapy for his healing journey.
Tyler is learning to accept, surrender, and forgive, and I'm starting to look at myself as a more whole human being whose successes have nothing to do with weight. Hopefully, as the season unfolds, Iggy will learn how to handle his food addiction, and it will be interesting to see what role Dr.
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Advocacy and Awareness
Tyler Labine has used his platform to advocate for mental health awareness and body positivity. He speaks openly about his struggles and encourages others to seek help. In an interview with The Creative Coalition CEO Robin Bronk, Labine discussed the importance of destigmatizing obesity and eating disorders. He criticized the BMI scale and the misconception that being overweight is inherently unhealthy.
On which stories about weight and obesity are meaningful to him: “Any storyline, any representation about weight loss or obesity that I’ve seen before. And anything we had touched on- which I’ll go back and talk about the original trigger for my kind of storyline- it always hits me in a very uncomfortable spot. I’d never really seen any, like, care taken to tell this story, or to tell overall stories about physical transformations. And not only the physical sort of pain, but the mental toll that it takes on people, and that storyline was really interesting, too, because this woman was, like, she was being torn apart emotionally, after doing something that she thought was going to be the cure, you know? And I think that that sort of triggered something for me. This idea that we can’t be happy, functioning members of society for obese is bull****! And it’s misinformation. And I understand that there are health issues, but the whole BMI scale, everything that has been sort of, I think, sort of given to us, handed to us as these various sort of catch-all reasons that being overweight is bad, and it’s bad for your health isn’t actually that true. Yes, there are health and safety risks, you know, if you get to a certain level of obesity, but anyway, it just always triggers me because I feel like no one ever really talks about that. No one talks about that. Like, what if you are a happy, healthy, overweight person, but you still get the same stigma? There’s still the same stigma. So it triggered me in that regard, where she was talking about being stared at more now that she had lost the weight. But it was very subtle. They wrote in there that earlier, she had become accustomed to the way to the certain type of stares. And that really hit me. She’s like, ‘Yeah, because people do. People feel like it’s still okay to judge and look, and like, publicly sort of heckle overweight people.
He highlights the stigma faced by overweight individuals, even those who are healthy and happy. Labine's advocacy extends to challenging societal norms and promoting a more inclusive and accepting view of body diversity.
Addressing Weight Stigma
Labine has also spoken out against weight stigma, describing it as the last acceptable form of prejudice. He recounted how people feel comfortable judging and making hurtful comments about overweight individuals, a behavior that would be unacceptable for other health conditions.
Recent Health Scare
In a recent Instagram post, Tyler Labine shared a candid health update, revealing that he had been hospitalized for a potentially fatal blood clot in his intestines and liver. He expressed gratitude for his family and girlfriend's support and reflected on reassessing his priorities in life.
Labine explained that the situation has since made him reassess "what's really important" in life. He shared a Reel of photos and videos from his ambulance ride and hospital stay, with one rather emotional photo depicting a communication board that read: "How do I know I'm safe?"
Labine's caption said: "Sometimes it's a Tuesday and you're walking around with a tummy ache so you try to sleep it off. Then sometimes you wake up on a Weds with a stomach ache so bad you decide to go to the ER at your local hospital."And then sometimes your tummy ache turns out to be a potentially fatal blood clot in your intestines and liver and you have to spend the next 3 days in the hospital trying not to die. Just sometimes."I'm doing alright," he promised fans. "Slow recovery but I'm here with my family supporting me and my lovely girlfriend Martha taking care of me. "I'm counting my blessings and just possibly reassessing what's really important to me in this life. Thanks everyone. SO much love."