Actor Taye Diggs has been in the business for over 20 years, starring in feature-length films, shows and even Broadway. However, while taking a trip down career memory lane with daytime television talk show Jennifer Hudson, the “Best Man” actor recalled often being mistaken for sports superstar Michael Jordan.
During a recent appearance on Hudson’s eponymous talk show, the veteran actor explained how he routinely got mistaken for the legendary NBA player, saying,” I worked at Disneyland in Tokyo, so it was like everybody everything was Japanese,” he said, before revealing that locals there “had not seen Black people.” He added, “They actually thought I was Michael Jordan at the time.”
(L) Michael Jordan (Photo by FRANCK FIFE/AFP via Getty Images) (R) Taye Diggs (Photo by Bruce Glikas/Getty Images)
Diggs continued, “I was in the show called ‘Sebastian’s Caribbean Carnival,’ and it was based off of ‘The Little Mermaid.’ Sebastian the crab was like my co-host, and it was me and this little Japanese girl, and I had to learn Japanese. We sang in Japanese — all Japanese.”
An impressed Hudson noted how amazing that experience must have been for the award-winning actor, who joked that “it was ridiculous, but it was a lot of fun,” before sharing that it gave him an opportunity “to see the world.”
Fans will get to see more of Taye after the “Brown Sugar” star was tapped as the host of a new dating show called “Back in the Groove,” which is set to stream on Hulu sometime in the near future.
The unscripted show will follow three women, 43-year-old Sparkle from Atlanta; 41-year-old Steph from Miami; and 42-year-old Brooke from Los Angeles, seeking to break out of their day-to-day lives and tap into love.
The three lucky hopefuls will be staying at The Groove Hotel in the Dominican Republic, where their prospective love interests are half their age. The premise of the show and its name are all a play on Taye’s iconic romance film “How Stella Got Her Groove Back,” in which he starred as the 20-something love interest of Angela Bassett’s character, 40-year-old Stella.
