The Ryan Seacrest interview is scheduled for 2:30 p.m., but texts from his team about my arrival time begin lighting up the phone well before 1 p.m.: “What is your ETA? He
is arriving a bit earlier.” And indeed, at 2:27 p.m. a Range Rover rolls to the curb and out of the back bounds Seacrest, his relieved interviewer having only just sprinted into the private back room of Cosme, a farm-to-table Mexican restaurant in Manhattan’s Flatiron District, one of Seacrest’s favorites since he relocated from Los Angeles four years ago. Ryan Seacrest show
“My lunch date!” Seacrest says, bursting through the double doors, thrusting his hand out, his smile electric, his gold Rolex Cosmograph Daytona catching the light. His manner is familiar and warm, every ounce of the charisma bomb seen on TV and heard on the radio. He’s chronologically 46, but owing to clean living and his well-documented skin-care regime, could pass for a decade younger. When I mention that I’m relieved to have arrived before him, Seacrest says that while flipping through articles I’d written, he’d read of me showing up late to an interview and got the word out that doing so today would be suboptimal. One minor delay could throw off his whole schedule. “I just really like things to move,” he explains without rancor or menace. “I never am loud, but I like things to stay on schedule and be efficient.”
Five days a week, Seacrest broadcasts Live from 9 to 10 a.m. from the Lincoln Square ABC studio and then sprints down a flight of stairs to another studio to broadcast his four-hour syndicated KIIS-FM show, On Air With Ryan Seacrest, which airs during the morning commute in L.A. Scheduled around these immovables is his weekly (since 2004) taping of American Top 40 With Ryan Seacrest, and, for about six months out of the year, his work with American Idol, including trips to audition cities and then the live shows, shot at CBS Television City in L.A. Until it ended in June, for 14 years he had all the responsibilities that came with being the co-creator and executive producer of “Keeping Up With the Kardashians” and the executive producer of its seven spin-offs. (He’ll maintain his executive producer credit on the family’s new Hulu franchise.) There are commitments to his Ryan Seacrest Foundation, run by his sister, Meredith, which builds and maintains broadcast studios inside pediatric hospitals. His schedule is patently ridiculous, and he knows it, but says the purest rush he gets from work is the sensation of relief after not falling from the highwire.
Way back in 2007’s “Knocked Up”, Seacrest did a cameo as a heightened, foul-mouthed version of himself, apoplectic that Jessica Simpson is late for an E! News interview. “All these stars…, they f—k my day up!” he bellows to the waiting crew. The portrayal didn’t come out of thin air, he concedes. “I am impatient,” he admits. “I don’t usually act like that. But I can’t be easygoing. I can be easygoing within the framework of a program. But I can’t be easygoing outside of it, because everything’s got to start immediately.”
Herein lies the irony of the one-man industry that is Seacrest: Only through Herculean efforts has he achieved a kind of perceived effortlessness—a skill he calls “making it look easy, making it feel like everyone who’s watching, listening could do your job.” No living broadcaster is better at ingratiating himself with an audience, making people believe, despite his perennial inclusion on the Forbes richest-celebrities list and his steady march towards billionaire status, that he is approachable.
Here are some things Ryan Seacrest revealed to WSJ. Magazine…
Seacrest on being approachable:
“I’ve seen people react to actors, to movie stars,” he says. “I never get that kind of treatment. It’s like, ‘Hey, Ryan, how are you? Nice to see you.’ Almost as if you literally know them. And I question myself sometimes, ‘Have I met them?’ ” Seacrest says that when he’s near other celebrities and approached by fans, they’ll hand Seacrest their phones and ask him to snap pics of them next to the true stars.
Seacrest on being ready for primetime:
He was a little overweight in middle school, traumatized by the time a classmate called him Kubiac (the stocky kid character from the ’90s sitcom Parker Lewis Can’t Lose), so he gave up lunches with Little Debbie cakes and Doritos in favor of one single orange. He says he now orders primarily from “the left side” of restaurant menus (where the appetizers reside), still has “a keen eye” for bloat and will adjust to a liquid diet if he detects any changes in how he looks on TV, which happens often, “usually on a Tuesday after everything from the weekend, the cheat foods, settle in.”
Seacrest on the advice Kelly Ripa gave him when he joined Live With Kelly and Ryan:
“Kelly said, ‘Look, we kind of just wing it.’ And I thought, ‘All right; well, that makes me nervous and comfortable because I can wing it when I’m comfortable, but I’m nervous if I’m not,’” he says. “So when I first started, I’m like, ‘I’ve got to think of things that don’t seem like I’m thinking of things to talk about.’ So, I’d try to figure out what could I do tonight that I can talk about tomorrow.”
Seacrest’s mother Connie on his Live With Kelly and Ryan family stories:
“Sometimes on Live he tells family stories and I will text him and say, ‘You are in the doghouse; I didn’t approve that story,’” she says.
Seacrest on missing out on close friendships due to his work:
“In my 30s, I did not socialize as much as I wanted to,” he says. “I missed Thanksgivings because I was going to do something that I thought would be beneficial for my career. I never was at Christmas. Now I look at my scheduling for major marquee moments in my life or someone else’s life, I just say, ‘I can’t,’ or, ‘No, let’s work around it.’ And I never had the courage to be able to do that. So there was this ineptness to developing great friendships for a while.”
Seacrest on his on-air health scare last year during a live American Idol episode:
“It’s personal, but I definitely knew that I needed to slow down…. I just had burnt myself out. I was absolutely beat and fatigued and just wasn’t letting myself accept that. Now I do.”
Seacrest on the medical advice he received after the incident:
One specific medical recommendation he received: Do less, advice Seacrest was loath to accept. “To say no to things is difficult. You want to say yes,” he says. “When I say no to something, I feel guilt in terms of an obligation.”
Seacrest on his breakup with Shayna Taylor:
After eight years on and off and isolating together during Covid-19 lockdown from his L.A. home, they split in 2020. “I’m sure it was my fault,” he says of the breakup. “I think throughout the most intense times in my life, when I made work a priority, I probably didn’t sit back, listen and prioritize a relationship as much as I should have.”
Seacrest on wanting kids:
He’s now dating model Aubrey Paige and calculating if he can find a place to schedule in some child rearing. “I start thinking about blocking off certain times in my month or year or week to focus on my personal life,” he says. “I do want to have kids. But I haven’t even gone down that path, which is nuts at my age. I think in the last year, it’s become clear to me that yes, I do want to do that…. I want to be available and present.” He says his mom isn’t holding her breath for grandchildren from him. “She’s given up on me,” he admits.
Bob Pittman, iHeartMedia, Inc. chairman and CEO, when asked about Seacrest’s healthy work-life balance goals:
“Ha, ha, ha,” pronounces when asked about it. “Print, ‘Ha, ha, ha,’ for me. Because I think working is his hobby. With Ryan, it is not work-life balance, it’s work-life integration.” Seacrest’s had the KIIS-FM show since 2004, and in September he signed a new contract with iHeart to host his radio shows until the end of 2025, worth untold dozens of millions a year, constituting what Seacrest says is his most remunerative gig. (“Great successful people can make a lot more money in radio than they can make in TV,” Pittman notes.)
Seacrest on the modest goals he’s set for his future lifestyle revolution:
“I think there will be a time where I will not have to check with my office to see if I can have dinner on a Saturday,” he says, a night off the work leash, his personal Shangri-la. “That’s always in my head. Ryan Seacrest show
On his lifestyle changes:
In February, he announced he was done doing E!’s red carpet coverage, which, because the Golden Globes arrive about a week after the New Year’s show, necessitated copious and speedy preparation on actors and awards categories, and represented an especially rewarding feat of endurance. Instead, he’s now filling his weekends with cooking courses at the Culinary Institute of America and planting olive trees at his new Napa Valley property, with plans to press his own olive oil and make wine. He’s resolved to no longer take calls while working out with his trainer. As for all other calls, he now attempts to keep each one limited to seven minutes. A frequent investor in such start-ups as CLIMBR, a fitness machine, and PathWater, a reusable bottled water, he’s now turning to investments in leisure activities, recently backing Classic Vacations, a global luxury travel business, formerly part of Expedia. (He says he’s loved recent visits to Mexico City and Tuscany, though when asked what he treasures most about travel, he says, in true Seacrestian fashion, “It’s appealing to me to explore and mine those territories for something that could be successful. It’s also nice to be able to go and hang out.”
Ryan Seacrest show
Read full article here.
Photo: Yoshiyuki Matsumura for WSJ. Magazine
For the latest in fashion, lifestyle and culture, follow us on Instagram @StyleRave_
This is a Style Rave original content exclusively created for our readers. If reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached, or otherwise used by any other publishing house or blogs, such use should provide a direct link to this source article. Use of and/or registration on any portion of this site constitutes acceptance of our Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.
—Read Also