NEED TO KNOW
Out of all the contestants on Nation’s Dumbest, Ice-T reveals he was most excited to meet Jon Heder
“When I saw him, I was like, ‘Holy s— ‘” Ice-T told PEOPLE of meeting the Napoleon Dynamite star
Nation’s Dumbest airs on Wednesdays at 9 p.m. ET on FOX and streams the next day on Hulu
When Ice-T was asked to be a part of FOX’s latest show, Nation’s Dumbest, he was in for a pleasant surprise.
The game show, hosted by comedian Jack Whitehall, brings together an eclectic group of celebrities to compete in challenges to prove their intelligence. Putting a twist on the traditional competition format, Nation’s Dumbest is a show no one wants to win. As the smartest celebrity graduates each episode, the remaining contestants will be one step closer to being crowned “The Nation’s Dumbest.”
Along with Ice-T, the celebrity contestants are Elle King, Jon Heder, Andrew Yang, Chase Hudson, Anthony Michael Hall, Hilaria Baldwin, Steve-O, Carmen Electra, JoJo Siwa, Matt Leinart and Dr. Drew Pinsky.
The celebrity contestants on ‘Nation’s Dumbest’
Credit: Shane Mahood/ FOX.
Speaking exclusively to PEOPLE at the Nation’s Dumbest press day in Los Angeles on July 9, Ice-T said meeting the Napoleon Dynamite star was surreal.
“I was the most excited to meet, really him,” the Law & Order: Special Victims Unit actor said, pointing to Heder. “When I saw him, I was like, ‘Holy s—.'”
“When you see people on television, you know, people meet Ice-T, but they’ve only seen me through a screen or something,” he added. “So when you finally see the real person, it’s a moment.”
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Heder chimed in to say that former presidential candidate Yang walked up to him on the first day of production and said, “John, Ice wants to meet you.”
“I was like, ‘If he wants to meet me, he has to approach me,'” Heder joked. “None of this secondhand, telephone game nonsense.”
The Blades of Glory actor also noted how “cool” it was to meet other stars while on Nation’s Dumbest. “I don’t know a lot of people in Hollywood, and so I was like, ‘Good. There’s some more people to put in my pocket. I love this.” he said.
Jon Heder, Andrew Yang and Hilaria Baldwin on ‘Nation’s Dumbest’
Credit: Shane Mahood/ FOX
Ahead of signing on for the game show, Ice-T said he was told it would be “easy” for him but he quickly found that to be untrue. “They baited me,” he said. “‘You’ll be on therel one show, two shows, [they said]. I was on there for my life.”
“We had to go to the show every day, and after a while, you just start to get Stockholm Syndrome,” the rapper said. “You start getting weird about it because you can’t get it out of your mind. And I was stressed out.”
Heder shared the same sentiment, saying, “We all collectively started getting obsessed with the mechanics of the show.”
“You have to get stars in order to help you at the end of the show. Everything you’re doing in the episode is [to get] stars,” he explained. “It wasn’t about taking down your teammates. It really was just like, ‘We gotta get those stars.’ I would go to sleep thinking about that. I would dream about stars.”
“It was a game, but it really got real,” Ice-T said.
Nation’s Dumbest airs on Wednesdays at 9 p.m. ET on FOX and streams the next day on Hulu.
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