His explosive career thus far has been an exercise in working through all this loaded meaning, and getting to a place where he can tell new stories about the way a man with his body can exist in the world. My body is so many different things,” he tells me. A conversation with him often returns to the subject of his body. His physical presence put people on high alert.įor Duke, acting has been a way to own his hyper-visibility, “to utilize it for my personal growth and edification rather than my destruction.” He is 6’ 5”, with a wrestler’s physique, and unlike many tall men, he stands up straight. He wasn’t just one of a few black students in a school that was 80 percent white, he was black and big. Duke, an immigrant from the Caribbean by way of Brooklyn, had a growth spurt at 13. When Winston Duke was a teenager in Brighton, New York, the kids at his high school started calling him a “close talker.” The term - plucked from a five-year-old episode of Seinfeld - unnerved him, since he felt like he was standing as close as anyone else would in conversation with people. 'It's a silent killer just the idea that diabetes killed more people in the United States, more people than HIV and breast cancer combined, is a scary thought,' he told Ebony.Photo: Corey Nickols/Contour by Getty Images In 2016, Duke told Hits 97.3 that his dedication to taking care of his body paid off when he was actually able to reverse his prediabetes. He's since become an advocate for making healthy food and fitness centers more accessible to others like him who could improve their own outlooks by eating right and exercising, per Future of Personal Health.ĭuke listed the American Diabetes Association's online risk assessment test as a helpful tool for those worried that they might be at risk of developing prediabetes or diabetes. I work out regularly, and eat complex carbohydrates and foods with a low glycemic index,' he revealed. 'I eat practically once every three hours to control my insulin levels. In order to control the condition, he's had to make a number of lifestyle changes. 'And then they threw it at my head and hit me.'ĭuke told Future of Personal Health that he's even been prediabetic himself. Marshals?' I already seen this s***,'' Duke recalled. He had co-host, Charlamagne tha God, in hysterics as he acted out his youthful self looking around for help, recounting, 'I was like, 'Is nobody seeing this?'' Two other muggers eventually popped out of nowhere and took the plunder that the first one found: some VHS tapes from the library. However, the natural storyteller spun the traumatizing memory into an entertaining tale on 'The Breakfast Club,' laughing as he recalled how he kept on walking down the street while a thief rummaged through the contents of his backpack and pockets. To make matters worse, their apartment got burglarized.ĭuke also got robbed while he was in middle school. Duke told Mentality (via Facebook) that the three of them ended up sharing a studio apartment, which they furnished with a sofa and television that had been abandoned on the curb. But his family's new home was no cozy, brightly lit sitcom set.

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