Celebrity Ripped Club: 8 Non-Athletes Who've Gotta Be On Steroids
So, let's get this straight: A baseball player gets caught using steroids, and suddenly Congress puts the whole government on hold to have hearings about it. But, if a rapper uses steroids, apparently we're supposed to think it's no big deal.
Well, it's a big deal to us, and we're sensing a gross double standard, here. We're going to blow the lid off a steroid scandal that stretches far and wide in the world of non-athletes, and we're not going to let our total lack of evidence slow us down.
Dr. Dre
Before & After:
Here's Dre in the studio, looking like a fat kid who just got busted up to his forearms in leftover birthday cake ...
... and here's Dre presenting at last month's VMAs. We had to embed the video because pictures just don't do it justice.
His muscles were so unexpectedly huge. His formerly fat head is so disproportionately small compared with the rest of his body. And, the long, grey underwear shirt is such a bizarre choice for a hip-hop mogul, that we were literally positive he was wearing Kevin Nealon's costume from the Hans and Franz sketch.
We're still not 100 percent convinced that he wasn't.
He Claims:
He's spent two hours in the gym everyday for the past four years.
So Is It Steroids?
A Los Angeles Times article reports he has cut his body fat from 29 percent to around 6 percent in the last few years, and also describes Dre pumping his arms and saying, "I feel like I can kick a brick wall down now." Nope, everything sounds pretty normal there.
The ridiculous "I'm not on steroids, I just spend all of my time in the gym" argument is a classic denial strategy that has been employed by the likes of Barry Bonds and Lance Armstrong. It's basically the equivalent of saying, "I'm not on cocaine because I stay up all night dancing like a douche bag and gritting my teeth." We bet this guy spends a lot of his time in the gym, too.
While the L.A. Times article doesn't come down on either side of the steroid debate, we're going to side with the hip-hop bloggers, who have taken the much bolder stance of, "nigga look like the incredible hulk. gay shit," and more specifically, "yeah dre is full off that act right JUICE. Lol".
Couldn't have said it better ourselves.
Why Would He Do It?:
From 50 to the Game to Busta Rhymes, Dre's entire Aftermath label is full of guys who look like, and wear shirts about as often as, professional wrestlers. Regardless of the reason, it makes us long for the days when rappers wore North Face in the summer and let their glocks do the talking for them.
Carrot Top
Before & After:
In Chairman of the Board Carrot Top was just a skinny guy surfing his way through corporate America in eye-damaging clothing ...
... then he played the scrawny guy in no less than 1,000 AT&T ads.
Then, possibly in preparation for a joke that involved some especially heavy props ...
... he turned himself into a monster from a horror movie.
He Claims:
Well, he has this video which is supposed to detail his diet and workout routine. However, Top seems confused by the high-protein cooking ingredients and doesn't seem to know how to work most of the exercise machines.
Incidentally, the video was also advertising a product called "Plasma Ball," which we almost ordered because we thought it would let us shoot balls of energy like in Street Fighter 2. It turns out it's just a workout supplement.
So Is It Steroids?
In body builder slang, vascularity is the degree to which your veins bulge through your skin, and according to the body building forums we frequent, the veins bulging from CT's arms, shoulders, neck, face and eyeballs indicate he's getting chemical assistance other than the two-drink minimum at the comedy club.
Then again, this is the same body building forum where someone said, "Like or hate his shtick, it's pretty physical so I can see where he'd have to be in shape." So, we may not be dealing with guys with MDs behind their names, here.
Why Would He Do It?:
We couldn't figure out why a comedian would need to make himself so physically imposing. Then, we put it all together.
He's got a nickname that corresponds to his looks;
His incessant visual punning gives him an annoying gimmick;
He appears to have some recent chemical burning of his face and corresponding spackle makeup.
That's right: Carrot Top is a Batman villain.
Charlie Sheen
Before & After:
Charlie Sheen as a skinny stockbroker in Wall Street ...
Then, when cast to play the parody Rambo role in Hot Shots! Part Deux ...
He Claims:
He worked out with a trainer in Maui for eight hours a day (according to this and this).
So Was It Steroids?
Our first impression watching Hot Shots! Part Deux was that they did an incredible makeup job with Sheen and the latex muscle suit. The skin looked very realistic and ... holy shit! Dude, that's really him!
It took Sheen just five months to go from regular guy to looking like a bulging freak of nature. So, supposedly, if you start in October you can have a Stallone-esque physique by around Valentine's Day.
We're not buying it. The average CRACKED staffer works out about four hours a day and when we flex for each other in the hall, we're not seeing bodies like Sheen had. Toss in Sheen's history of drug use and it's easy to imagine he took some chemical shortcuts.
Why Would He Do It?
His salary for the film gave him 4 million reasons. Plus, the role called for a Rambo look and we're assuming he didn't want to spend several months in the sun with latex pecs glued to his chest.
Madonna
Before & After:
As recently as 2006, Madonna was just a pretty lady who looked insanely good for her age.
But, as she passed into her late 40s, she began to exhibit the standard symptoms of menopause such as the muscular biceps of an 18-year-old Golden Gloves boxer and a set of shoulders you could land a goddamn jet on.
She Claims:
"I mix it up -Pilates, yoga. I do it six days a week. Actually, Sunday is horse riding. There is no such thing as a day off."
So Is It Steroids?
Unless Madonna defines "horse riding" as wrestling a wild stallion into submission and then eating its raw flesh, we're guessing she didn't get those arms riding horses. Yoga is even more laughable.
Marion Jones' pretty face allowed the mainstream media to ignore that veins like the roots of a sequoia tree were bulging from her awkwardly huge muscles. The fact that there are two pretty awesome boobs hanging between Madonna's shoulders shouldn't distract you from their alarming "male-gymnist-mid-pummel-horse-routine." quality.
Also, if Madonna's arms aren't manly enough for you, check out this close up of her hand clutching a water bottle as though it were trying to escape from her death grip.
Why Would She Do It?
Madonna has tried on just about every female identity ever created, from the virgin right up through cougar. With nowhere to go, she's ready to move on to men's identities and is apparently starting with Lou Ferrigno.
Christian Bale
Before & After:
Here's Christian Bale as the uncomfortable, borderline-translucent skeleton in The Machinist ...
... and then he was cast to play Batman, so he needed to bulk up.
Damn. And, he only had six motherfucking months to do it. That's 120 pounds to 220 pounds in half a year.
He Claims:
He gorged himself as quickly and as often as possible on ice cream, pizza and milkshakes, often eating five meals in a sitting, and worked out steadily. Bale was so excited about eating pizza after his Machinist diet of cigarettes and Draino, that he reportedly got too big and had to trim down for Batman.
Right, just so we're clear, that picture above is the trimmer version of Bale.
So Was It Steroids?
We're undecided on this one. Sure, the situation is almost identical to Charlie Sheen's, but Bale is a sworn method actor and Sheen is a creepy-looking drug addict (or was at the time).
Being a method actor means that doing a whole bunch of crazy, ridiculous shit to your body is just part of the process. Bale got real-life skinny because his character in The Machinist was insanely skinny, so it might stand to reason that he would only take steroids if Bruce Wayne took steroids. This theory on Bale's strict method does imply that his process also included dressing up in a bat suit, stalking around Manhattan and murdering muggers, but he's so intense that we're actually willing to believe he'd do that.
What we can't get over is the claim that he got that physique on ice cream, pizza and milkshakes. First of all, who was his nutritionist, Chuck E. Cheese? After he ate all the pizza and ice cream did he spend three hours doing laps in the ball pit followed by 250 reps on the Whac-a-Mole?
We're not going to call this for one side or the other because of our man-crush on Bale, but if you're going to show up on set looking like that, at least come up with a believable diet--woodchip and shark egg omelets, for instance.
Why Would He Do It?
He saw the shape Carrot Top had gotten himself into and knew that he had to get ready.
Danny Bonaduce
Before & After:
Let's watch as Danny Bonaduce evolves from adorable little freckled kid ...
... to regular-looking adult ...
... to something between a semiprofessional wrestler and a burned-out exotic dancer.
He Claims:
Steroids. On camera.
So Is It Steroids?
We're thinking it might be.
They did several episodes about it in his reality show Breaking Bonaduce, where they took a camera and basically watched Bonaduce being addicted to things for several weeks. Steroids, alcohol and, most of all, cheap, tawdry fame.
Why Would He Do It?
Danny apparently decided years ago he was going to devote his entire life to being dysfunctional and scary. He roughed up a transvestite back in 1991. He apparently enjoyed the feeling of causing weird and damaging confrontations wherever he went. At some point, he decided to transform his body into a machine that could take scary and awkward behavior to a superhuman level:
We're thinking the whole Bonaduce thing isn't going to end well.
Edward Norton
Before & After:
Edward Norton hit Hollywood as the willowy accused murderer in Primal Fear ...
... and soon after emerged in American History X as a racist superman who looked like he could bring back segregation with a single flex of his pectoral muscles.
He Claims:
He says he worked out for three months and ate lots of protein to add the 30 pounds of muscle for the role. That's right, guys. If you look like the before picture in October, you can look like the after by Christmas--minus the swastika tattoo, hopefully.
We don't buy it.
So Was It Steroids?
We're not the only ones who suspected 'roids. Apparently Arnold Schwarzenegger contacted Norton asking if he had done a cycle of steroids to get that big. We're thinking Arnold is probably something of an expert on the subject.
Why Would He Do It?
Conveying American History X's complex theme (that racism is wrong) required a chiseled and menacing figure to represent white supremacy. And, let's face it, if white supremacists all looked like the "before" picture up there, it'd be hard to take racism seriously as a problem. Society could simply put racism in a headlock until it made a tearful apology.
Sylvester Stallone
Before & After:
Sylvester Stallone has really been in shape his whole career. Here, he is just casually hanging around his house.
Here, he is once he finally got approval for Rocky Balboa ...
... and here he is training with Tony "The Grizzly Bear" Mahoney between takes.
So, what's our point? Well, remember Rocky III when an aging Rocky had to fight the young upstart Clubber Lang? Well, here's what Clubber Lang looks like today.
Sure, Stallone has always been in shape, but he's 60 fucking years old. It doesn't help his case that, while promoting this film, Stallone was stopped at an Australian airport and charged with illegally importing a steroid known as HGH (human growth hormone).
Other celebrities can definitely learn how to defuse their own drug situations by studying Stallone's clever use of words. Sly's use of steroids is just a "minor misunderstanding," Britney Spears is guilty of "confused drinking," and Andy Dick has a "silly cocaine hobby."
So Is It Steroids?
Yes and no, though mostly, (if not totally), yes. Stallone did plead guilty to possession of testosterone and human growth hormones, but he also said it was a "mistake" made because he was "ignorant about local laws." Ignorance, as authorities have repeatedly pointed out to the CRACKED staff, is no excuse, particularly when "Don't do steroids" isn't exactly a "local" law.
Why Would He Do It?
Do you remember all the subtle, character nuances that make Stallone's movies so iconic and inspirational? Of course you don't, because there aren't any.
Now, do you remember when Rocky punched all those guys and, in later movies, those other guys? And, do you remember when Rambo made someone explode with a single arrow and laughed off fatal bullet wounds? Fuck yeah, you do! It's pretty simple; Stallone gets work because he's an enormous ass-kicking machine with indecipherable speech patterns. If Sly ever hoped to get another job, especially at his age, steroids were probably the only course of action.
"murdering muggers" - really? If they're muggers, then, by definition, they made the choice to do evil, and thus made the choice to forfeit life in their society. A criminal is not worthy of sympathy when they get what's coming to them, because they were asking for it in the first place. All actions have consequences, and when you commit a crime, one of those consequences is that good people will exact justice upon you.
ReplyI don't know if I can believe if Bale had to be that skinny for the role. Just looks insanely unhealthy, can't computers do that kind of thing too? Any way I doubt he was on steroids, I'm super sure that Stallone and Carrot Top are using though...
ReplyIm sure its relatively easy to gain muscle fast, when youve got the best personal trainers, facilities, equipment, dieticians and chefs at your disposal. You only have to work towards getting muscular and other preperations for the movie shoot and youve got 3 months to get there. I lost 80 lbs in one summer, but i was a fat f**k who decidedto start punishing his body withh endurance biking.
ReplyLosing obese body fat and gaining muscle are two different things. If you're forced to eat by a certain schedule, on a certain diet, and exercise a certain amount - you WILL lose weight, especially if you have 80 lbs to lose (obese).
Muscle gain is not so simple. There's a difference between dirty bulking and lean muscle building, and while a brute force diet and training regimen can get "somebody" (more on that) to a point of putting on 40 lbs in 6 months, doing it cleanly, and without roids or hormones? Takes a lot of X factors lining up nicely like:
1. Gender (male)
2. Age (16-24)
3. Genetics (mitochondrial profile, body type, athletic background, skeletal structure, etc)
A man won't grow more muscle than his natural hormone levels will support. Anabolism is closely linked with levels of free testosterone, and without external supplementation (juicing), a male is not going to gain beyond a certain amount of muscle, or a certain rate of muscle gain. Doesn't matter how effective your training is, how sophisticated the methods, or how good the diet. There's a ceiling and for most people not physically gifted with the Gods' deign to be an athlete, it's reasonably small, or reasonably slow muscle growth.
That being said I don't think everyone on this list juiced. Dr. Dre, yeah. It's obvious, everything grew in ways you can't manage after 18. Carrot Top, maybe. Depends how quickly. Vascularity can be improved by diet and supplements that aren't roids. Edward Norton, not necessarily. "The Newbie Effect" - if you never lifted before and the stars align with the way you eat, train and rest - you can make dramatically fast gains if you're still relatively young. Stallone - OF COURSE. Everybody knows it. Sheen, he's admitted he did. Bonaduce, not roids, maybe hormone. He's just lean, he's got no mass. Bale - I don't think so. In Batman he's not totally yoked, which is typical of artificial enhancement. He's just put on a buttload of weight - and the fact that he put on too much and had to cut down tells you he was brute forcing it. They're not talking about muscle - since when can Batman be too muscular? No, Bale put on junk weight - fat - because of his "balls to the wall" gaining diet. He had to trim back down to look like a superhero and not an offseason heavyweight boxer. And Madonna - who knows what the hell she's put in her body. Probably not steroids, but I wouldn't be surprised if she took some sort of PED or just lived on an unhealthy diet.
I think 'soon after' with regards to Primal Fear and American History X is....crap? There are years, YEARS between the two films, one is early nineties, one is late nineties if not early 2000's.
ReplyI mean, really. Some of them, sure, but that one is just reaching.
Madonna isn't on roids. She just has hardly any body fat. Either way, she looks terribly unhealthy.
ReplyChristian Bale is not a skinny guy - hes 6' and his natural weight is around 190 lbs. He's mesomorphic and athletically built - for proof check him out in American Psycho or Equilbrium, which were before Batman or The Machinist (which he lost unnatural amounts of weight for)
Replyof course, he did spend months bulking up for American Psycho, but why mention that?
Hollywood is a business. If you have to bulk up fast or risk losing multi-million dollar role, it would be stupid not to use steroids.
ReplyMaybe if an actor has excellent genetics they can get that big using expert trainers and nutritionist, but it is still taking a significant risk when there are time constraints.
Professional athletes take years to build their physique under the supervision of experts, then you have some Hollywood actor who can get a better looking body in months. It would be naive to assume that the average actor can achieve such results naturally.
Thank you Cracked for a great article. Like KnotworkOrange I have a similar problem to his and this made me feel great. Also I'm glad to know I'm not the only one with a man crush on Christian Bale. Batman AND Patrick Bateman? Yeah world, I"M the one who's weird.
ReplyI'm the kind of person who's been working out for years and just can't see it myself despite what other people tell me. After reading this I realised that my weight isn't too far off of some of these supposed steroid users and that's a pretty inspirational though unintended side effect of this article for me. Thanks Cracked.
ReplyGreg Puciato.
ReplyI disagree, say it to his face!
I kinda doubt Bale, Norton, or even Sheen were on steroids, none of those guys have the weird unnatural vascularity. Madonna looks like she did pilates and horseback riding, and plenty of middle aged women have really veiny hands like that. Dre is a hard call because the shirt sort of makes it difficult to tell how unnatural it is, but with 4 years that might be possible. The other 3 I have basically no doubts on.
ReplyDamn! Cracked staff be hatin! haha...
ReplyI can't speak for any of those guys, but I know that I've been accused of using roids by alot of folks, and I've never even seen the stuff, let alone used any. Nutrition and dedication can go alot further than most people seem to realize.
Bale and Norton especially are not exactly huge. It would totally be possible to acheive their level of size and fitness without the roids. IMHO.
Though to be fair Bale actually dropped about 30 pounds to 190 to play Batman so he actually probably was. Both of those guys are dedicated method actors though so I really doubt it was steroids (not to mention Bale was that ripped pre-mechanist too.
was huge*
With as much money as these people have im not convinced that a few of them didnt just hire excellent personal trainers
ReplyNorton and Bale definitely did not use steroids. As an expert in exercise, fitness, and nutrition (please feel free to ask me about my MPH from Purdue, after I received my undergrad in health and fitness from the same university) I can verify that Bale could totally eat ice cream, pizza, and milkshakes, as those foods actually contain a great deal of nutrition. The fat in the pizza itself would be good for Bale since it would be needed as an energy source to burn instead of the newlt created muscle he would also be creating. And as with both Bale and Norton, the physique is easier to create when you are small/skinny as you do not need to burn off your fatty tissue which would carry more useless weight in the muscle building process. But everyone else, yeah, they totally use steroids.
Reply Hide All See All 3 RepliesThat may be true, but Ive been eating 30-60 grams of protien a day, and working out like crazy, Im still 130.
I want to ask about your MPH from Purdue.
30-60 grams of protein isn't gonna do it. You should have one gram of protein per pound of your desired body weight.
Norton and Bale are hard sales for me, in my opinion their massive gains in a few months seem about right for me. My freshman year of college, I went from 150lbs to 180lbs by just working out for 2hrs a day, 5x a week. All the supplement I used was eating like crazy and taking protein shakes right after a good workout. It wasn't even high end stuff, just the cheap walmart variety. Dre seems like a stretch but, if he did spend a lot of time working out in 4 years, he could be clean, too. Madonna is definitely not on the juice, horse back riding seems like a stupid exercise but, pulling back on those reigns and breaking in horses is actually quite the workout. I know because one of my ex girlfriends used to ride.
ReplyUnless they keep up the drugs, in a couple of months all that "hard earned" muscle will turn to flab. But I suppose they are making enough money that they won't be running out any time soon.
ReplyWhile Bonaduce is quite a douche, I gotta hand it to him, at least from the neck down, he looks great in those photos.
ReplyNorton should not be #2. For god's sake, 30 pounds in 3 months is unbelievable? I joined my school's rowing team and have gained 7 pounds in 1 month after changing my relatively inactive lifestyle into one with routines of hard workouts and lifting. I probably would have gained more if I weren't shedding body fat at the same time.
ReplySame, my new routine is one hour weight lifting sun-tue and rugby on Wednesday and Friday and that's been it for two months (from Modern Warfare 2 sun-sat) and my former man tits are now huge pecs and my BMI is obese for all the right reasons, though I've always been stronger than the average COD slob from England (highest obesity rate in Europe, we're finally not second best at something whoo! Oh wait we also produced the worst culture ever, see: Chav). But I digress 30 pounds is good for three months, but it's not "Too Good".
Actually, I do remember all the subtle, character nuances that make Stallone's movies so iconic and inspirational (well, at least for the first few Rocky movies). I mean, the first Rocky movie's whole premise is that he's a dopey, blue-collar everyman who doesn't even win when it comes to punching.
ReplyGreat being ripped but,it aint no good when ya dicks dropped off,brothers.
Reply