Action star Denzel Washington has dropped more than 30lbs of flab in the blink of an eye, and sources said his friends fear the aging, two-time Oscar winner is wasting away in a desperate bid to regain the hunky looks he had in his youth.
RadarOnline.com can reveal the 6-foot-1 star, who hits his milestone 70th birthday December 28, packed on 35 pounds by gorging on cake and milkshakes to play a pot-bellied sheriff in the 2021 film The Little Things and the flab stuck, said a pal.
“Denzel found that at his age, his metabolism has slowed, and those pounds stuck around for like forever”, said the friend.
“But he seems to have melted it away overnight and he’s not tell- ing how he did it.”
Spurring the quick pounds-plunge was vanity, said the friend, adding that the Glory actor wants to look dashing this spring when he stars on Broadway in Shakespeare’s noir-romance play Othello , about a jealous Moor warrior who believes his young wife has cheated on him.
“Doing movies, you can use the trick of the cameras for how you look, but on a live stage, it’s all laid bare,” said the buddy.
” Denzel has an actor’s ego and he couldn’t stand the thought of people looking at him like he’s a fat old man when they come to see him!”
Still, noted New York diet doctor Stuart Fischer warned Washington could be playing a dangerous game with his health by losing weight so rapidly.
“Roller-coaster dieting is simply not good for the human body, and neither is using quick-fix weight loss treatments”, noted Dr. Fischer, who has not treated Washington.
“On the face of it, Denzel did well by dropping the pounds , but he has to be careful going forward on how he maintains healthy weight.”
But a source believed ego is behind the weight loss: “He wants the attention as the handsome leading man he’s been for the past 35 years!”
