An XL Life : Staying Big at Half the Size

This is the weight-loss story you don’t hear about. As LA’s most talked about radio personality, and a man that peaked the scale at 500-pounds, Big Boy shares his journey to the top, and for the first time gets real about his weight-loss to ensure people know the truth.

This is the weight-loss story you haven’t heard.

Despite growing up homeless, fatherless and facing more than a few problems with gang violence, Big Boy managed to rise to the top of the hip -hop world and west-coast radio scene. He had just one problem.

Over the years, Big Boy was becoming a very big man. As he reached the pinnacle of broadcasting he just kept piling on the pounds until his weight scaled a truly scary 510 pounds. A bet with Will Smith for charity set him on the right path – but he’d need to do something much more drastic if he was going to get well. He’d have to learn to put himself first.

It didn’t come easy. A radical surgical procedure took off the pounds, but it nearly killed him. Even with his health in turmoil, Big continued to entertain while fighting through the greatest struggle of his life.

Now, in An XL Life, the joke song-singing, crank call-making, celebrity interviewing, wise-cracking, all around hilarious, humongous brotha behind the wildly popular morning radio program Big Boy’s Neighborhood shares everything he lived through and learned along the way.

Big Boy, aka Kurt Alexander, is one of the most recognizable voices on the radio and ranks among the most widely heard hip-hop radio DJs in the country – one of only a few personalities to transcend the broadcast console and develop a branded presence in television (Flavor of Love, Keeping Up with the Kardashians, Snoop Dogg’s Father ‘Hood), movies (The Longest Yard, Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo) and as an advertising pitchman for the likes of Nissan and Coca-Cola.

The second youngest of seven children, Big Boy grew up in Los Angeles, California. After college, Big Boy took advantage of his increasingly large size and broke into the hip-hop world working as a bodyguard for the rap group Pharcyde.

Ever since, Big Boy has worked in radio, dominating the ratings in all of the timeslots he has occupied including nights, afternoons, and mornings. His name, deriving from his size which peaked at 500 pounds, led to Big having the duodenal switch stomach surgery in fall of 2003. Over the next year he lost over 250 pounds, however in the process he nearly lost his life.

Through it all Big Boy continued to hold the #1 rated morning show, leading the industry to recognize Big by naming him Personality of the Year four times from the Radio Music Awards and the same honor seven times from Radio and Records magazine. The National Association of Broadcasters has also recognized Big Boy’s exceptional talent with the Marconi Award which is the “Oscars of Radio” a very rare three times in 2002, 2004 and 2007.