His and Hers co-host Jemele Hill appeared on the 20 Questions With Kyle Brandt podcast/game show this week, and while some of their conversation (such as the discussion about ESPN’s struggles being a “false narrative”) was quite serious, other parts were much lighter. Brandt asked one particularly interesting light question: “Of all the current on-camera talent at ESPN, forget about the former pro athletes, who do you think is in the best shape? Who’s at the top of their stuff?” Here’s the clip (21:55 mark):
Hill’s response: “I’m going to give you a dark-horse name that you probably wouldn’t think of, but Ryen Russillo is in very good shape. We’re part-time sports TV hosts, we’re full-time actors, so in addition to Coming To America, we did a spoof of Kurtis Blow’s ‘Basketball,’ and Ryen Russillo, if anyone’s seen this video, it’s the cheesiest rap video ever made, right? So we made it just as cheesy. Ryen Russillo is one of the guys, he just does a dunk and a wink. Russillo is buff, and he shot his scenes before we did, and some of the women who were in there on the set kept talking about how he was like just ‘Welcome to the gun show.’ I know he works out every day, because I believe I’ve seen him leaving the ESPN gym, but he’s in really good shape.”
Brandt then goes on to mention former ESPNer Skip Bayless, and Hill responds, ‘Oh yeah, I thought Bayless was a pretty obvious answer just because he’s so well-known. Skip, he works out twice a day I believe, if I’m not mistaken. You’ll see him…he lived for years at the hotel, the Residence Inn, which is down the street from campus, so during the week he stayed there, I believe he had a place in New York too. But when you stayed at the Residence Inn, he’d be in there every morning running, and then later on, you’d see him sometimes at the ESPN gym lifting. I know he gets a lot of trolls and a lot of people don’t like him, but that’s not somebody you want to test in person, because my man is swole.”
While the tidbits on Russillo and Bayless’ workout habits are interesting, the really fascinating part here is the idea of Bayless living at the Residence Inn in Bristol for years. Would people in the next room hear him yelling at the TV during games? Would he have hot takes on how his room was cleaned? If Fox is looking for new sitcom programming…
[20 Questions With Kyle Brandt]
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