Ruben Studdard, who won the second season of American Idol, is going to try his hand at another reality show competition. The singer has signed on to compete in NBC’s The Biggest Loser.
In an interview with People magazine, Studdard, who won Idol 10 years ago, says that he has tried to battle obesity, but he hopes Biggest Loser will help him even more.
“I was losing weight, but I was exhausted. It was making me sick,” Studdard told the magazine back in 2006 when he did a 1,200-calorie daily diet. “I'm a big man. There was no way to do those workouts on that amount of food, so everything was contradicting itself.”
He quit a weight loss plan, but later switched to being a vegetarian, losing 70 pounds in 2006.
According to Today.com, Studdard appeared on Today that year, looking slimmer. “On both sides of my family, I have a family history of diabetes and high blood pressure and things of that nature,” he told Meredith Vieira at the time. “I just wanted to basically combat those issues at an early age. They’ve never been an issue for me, but I wanted to do it while I was still young, and felt like working out and looking great.”
But after his divorce and stress from owing thousands in taxes, he turned back to food. “I just started going out and kickin’ it,” he explained on The Wendy Williams Show last June.
Studdard will try to lose the weight again on The Biggest Loser, which starts its 15th season on Oct. 8.