Ted Danson gets candid about biggest struggle during work on 'Cheers'

Ted Danson has admitted it took him years to accept that audiences viewed him as a heartthrob during the height of Cheers fame in the 1980s.

The admission came during his recent podcast Where Everybody Knows Your Name with guest Lisa Ann Walter, where the 78-year-old actor looked back on his time playing Sam Malone in the hit sitcom and his struggle in in understanding why women found him attractive.

Danson joked that he was often genuinely confused by the attention he received. “I won't go back too far because it's not necessary,” Danson told People. “But I was the guy who literally — it sounds funny, and it kind of is — but I would be, the woman would be standing opposite me naked and I'd be going, ‘What?'”

The actor said it was not until the second season of Cheers that he finally stopped questioning it and decided to simply accept the image people had of him.

“I'd look over my shoulder and be like, ‘You mean me?'” he continued. “Literally, it took me until the second year of Cheers when I decided, ‘You know what? Keep your mouth shut, Ted.'”

He added, “I got that mantle and finally learned to keep my mouth shut”.

He also credited the show’s writing and cast for helping create his onscreen character Sam Malone’s appeal. Danson said the female characters constantly describing Sam as attractive convinced audiences to see him that way too.

Cheers ran from 1982 until 1993 and turned Danson into one of television’s biggest stars. He previously admitted that leaving the sitcom was a major turning point in both his career and personal life.

During an earlier episode of his podcast, Danson revealed he walked away from the series partly because he feared being permanently tied to the role of Sam Malone and wanted to prove he could succeed elsewhere as an actor.

"First off, the transition was easy 'cause I blew my personal life up so badly in that moment of leaving that it didn't even dawn on me that I had quite left Cheers for months 'cause I was just dealing with myself and my personal stuff," he told Charlie Day in an August episode of his podcast. "I think I left Cheers 'cause I went, 'I'm blowing s*** up in my life for the better'”.

He added, "I was changing for the better and working really hard at that, so I thought, 'Might as well jump completely off the cliff,'” he added. “And [there was] a little bit of... if I don't leave now, I may not know if I could do anything else and I wanna see if I can do any other stuff”.

The Emmy-winning star has since built a long-running television career with shows including Becker, The Good Place, and CSI.