Alison Sweeney is one of those minor celebrities whom I really like. She reminds me of Vanessa Lachey in that way. Sweeney has a TV hosting gig on Biggest Loser and she pops up occasionally in the press when she’s promoting something. Otherwise she does her own thing and is not constantly hustling. Plus she’s very active on Twitter interacting with fans.
In a new interview with Larry King (seriously, he’s still interviewing people), Sweeney talked about the fact that she decided to leave Days of our Lives after 21 years. She said she misses her daily routine and her character, Sammi. She also discussed The Biggest Loser and how inspirational it is to see contestants change their lives. King brought up the fact that women are underrepresented and undercompensated in Hollywood, as we saw during the Sony hack. Sweeney’s response was thoughtful and true. I especially like that she admitted that she used to not understand the importance of feminism, until she considered it in a larger context. Here’s some of what she told King, and you can watch the video on Ora.tv.
On leaving Days of Our Lives
You miss your friends. I miss my colleagues and the crew and the cast. The same parking space, the same dressing room, the same routine every day for 21 years. It was hard to leave and I miss my character. I miss Sammi. Days is going to be celebrating it’s 50th anniversary in November of 2015. They’re still going strong, but it was just time for me to move along. I let them know that I would be leaving at the end of my contract about a year in advance. They wrote that my character went off to Hollywood.Why she left Days
I was doing two full-time jobs working at Days of our Lives and hosting The Biggest Loser and it just got to be too much. Watching my son go into the third grade and my daughter start kindergarten, I realized that I was missing out on a lot and they were missing out on a lot.On The Biggest Loser
It makes me really proud to be part of a show that is making a difference. We’re helping these people learn the tools that they need to save their own lives. A lot of reality TV is more structured and preplanned than one would think, but our show—I mean, they are in there actually in the gym every day losing the weight and that scale is true every week… Biggest Loser is a show about hope. It’s a show that believes you can make a change.On obesity
People want to blame the fast food industry. There’s a lot of issues with people who can’t afford to go to healthier meals. At the heart of it we’re a generation of people who don’t want to be in our kitchen. We need to take charge of what we’re eating and take responsibility for it.“What are your thoughts on the resurgence of the word feminism?”
I was one of those women who used to say I’m not a feminist, but I really like how it was brought up the last year because the statistics are uncomfortable. Women are not working as much as men and certainly [in] the director’s guild we’ve talked about the statistics of female directors working in Hollywood is quite low… staggeringly less than other industries. The other issue is that women are TV watchers. We are your audience also. So the idea that you’re not putting women in power… creating films and TV that women want to see is an equation I don’t understand.“Is it harder to be a woman out here?”
I’ve had a great experience in my career so I really can’t, on a personal level, talk about it, but it must be. I’ve had an experience as a director… [on] Days of Our Lives and General Hospital… [that was] really rewarding to me… I wish more people were open to that.
Compare Sweeney’s thoughts on feminism to Kaley Cuoco’s recent dismissal of the entire concept. Sweeney admits that, like Cuoco (although she never mentions her by name), she’s grateful for her career and doesn’t believe she’s personally experienced gender discrimination. However she recognizes that women are not in power in Hollywood in equitable numbers and that we’re not influencing programming to the degree that we’re consuming it. She’s thought about feminism and she realizes that it was wrong of her to dismiss it when the issue affects us all.
Sweeney is a spokesperson for Sleep Number, and she also talked about how people aren’t getting enough sleep and how that’s tied to health and weight. I wanted to talk about this because I got a Jawbone Up 24 for Christmas and have been tracking my sleep and daily activity. I’m trying to get 8 hours sleep a night and it has improved my mood so much. Overall I loved seeing this interview, Sweeney is an interesting, upbeat person with a lot to say.
photo credit: WENN.com
Bravo Allison. You hear that Kaley, even if you as a woman are not experiencing discrimination personally, you can’t ignore that these discriminations are not happening to women as a whole.
How refreshing.
Seriously! I wish that they were more comments on this because this is the stuff we really should be talking about.
I also have liked Allison for a long time. This is awesome!
Agreed! Very articulate and intelligent.
I really hated Sami but Allison is awesome. I appreciate sleep advocacy. When I was younger, my sister used to tell me sleep is unproductive. Luckily I never listened to her (and instead she’s listening to me) – the curing abilities (for all that ails you, whether it be physical, mental, emotional) is massive.
yes! I loved to hate Sami 🙂 I haven’t watched Days in years, but I recognised her face immediately. I was like “Wow, Sami on CB!”
And totally, 100% agree on the importance of sleep 🙂
I’ve always liked her – she was great to hate on DOOL 😀 – so it’s so nice to hear her thoughtful and smart thoughts on the equality issue. We need more of this and less ignorance.
Her interview was so refreshing to read. She comes across as a very self aware person and that’s rare coming from a celebrity.
I’ll always have a soft spot for her because I watched her grow up on Days . Eventhough I haven’t watched in years it’s great to hear they are still around.
I love Alison and Sami. I’ve been an on-and-off DOOL watcher my entire life, but with Sami gone, I don’t know if I’ll be “on” again anytime soon.
Me too, I’ve always loved Sami on Days and haven’t watched it since she left. Alison is such an admirable young woman, she did the 2 tv shows, raises her family and even writes books. She always seems so upbeat and together, and what she has to say on the subject of feminism proves again how smart she is.
I grew up with a chauvinist father and uncles so I had to fight every step of the way for where I got in life. I was a single mother in a time where jobs would go to the men for no other reason than that they were “heads of the family” and jobs that women were hired for had “men’s wages” and “women’s wages” and it was so infuriating to do the same work for less money. I wound up in a non-traditional job and had to work twice as hard to prove myself to the good ol’ boys and wound up getting burnt out because of it. But the women who came along after had it a lot easier. So these kids who hate feminism have no idea and I feel like giving them a kick where the sun don’t shine.
NOt to mention the ones who think that dressing like skanks is feminism.
Let’s hope that Kaleys of the world can grow and change and come to the same conclusion.
I’m always surprised by Kaley’s success. I recently saw an old issue of Vanity Fair and she was included in one of those ‘young actors to watch’ when she was a teen(?).
OYY!! This one too?!
1) She looks like a Hemsworth 2) I appeciate that she acknowledges her good fortune while NOT ignoring the simple facts about the imbalance of power in H’wood.
I like her. Really. I swear.
But I don’t like what she is doing to her face. You can’t deny that last photo looks really weird.
Smart lady and interesting interview. Sami was crazy as hell…man, I miss watching Days…
I really like her. She’s married to a cop, so her income is crucial. I think when she got Biggest Loser, she wasn’t sure how long the TV show would still be on and how long they would keep her, so juggled both, which must have been hard for the family. She made the right decision, and the Biggest Loser is the most lucrative one for their long-term financial security.
She seems very grounded.
I’d like to say how much I appreciate this site for actively promoting the true meaning of feminism. It might be a celebrity gossip site but it broadened my horizons on this subject so much more than the so called serious websites. Most of the women I know say they are not feminists. That’s because in my country the only self-proclaimed feminists who have a voice in the media and whom people associate with the word are those men-hating, bra-burning idiots who claim female superiority and don’t care about equality. My mother and her peers don’t use the internet and they base their opinions on various subjects on the stuff they hear on TV or read in the papers but the news outlets report on the subject of feminism only when those women I mentioned do something controversial and usually stupid which makes everyone hate the cause even more. And even if they’d use the internet and speak English, the majority of popular sites are still occupied by people who call all feminists – feminazis and spread their ignorance around. I’m disappointed but not surprised when someone refuses to identify as a feminist because it’s still a dirty word and you have to actively try to educate yourself or be lucky enough to come across people who will correct your views to even know what it truly means.
Followed her since her early days on her soap. Nothing but respect for her. Bravo!
I always wonder what size she is. She looks bigger than most of the celebrities you see, but not fat. when i googled, i found 38-25-35. don’t buy that, sounds like made up. anybody know? she looks healthy but not a toothpick, like her figure.
She had a struggle with weight when she was a teen. To their credit, Days didn’t give her grief over it but on her own she decided to change her eating and exercise more. She lost weight and kept it off in a healthy way. I think that’s why she got the job with Biggest Loser because she’s been there and did it right. She isn’t obsessed with being stick skinny, instead just works to be healthy. Another reason to love her.
And she also seems to have bothered in researching about the actual meaning of the word, which certainly didn’t hurt. Good for Alison!!!
She’s right about feminism and sleep and cooking our own food too! She’s one smart lady!
I like her too. And I really like that she admitted to not fully understanding it in the past. She was open minded enough to learn though, and can see outside her own experience, which is always a good thing.