GOOD MORNING AMERICA - Michael Strahan on "Good Morning America," 6/24/14, airing on the ABC Television Network. (ABC/Lou Rocco) MICHAEL STRAHAN (©2014 American Broadcasting Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.)
Michael Strahan, former NFL player and current “Good Morning America” host, never thought he would make it in the TV business.
“I’m amazed I’m on TV, I have a 6-inch space between my front teeth,” he said at the Variety Sports and Entertainment Summit in Los Angeles on Thursday. “Who in the hell gets on TV with a gap? A buddy of mine said 'You can’t say the letter S and you get paid to talk.' Everything you are not supposed to do, I do."
Strahan hosted “Live with Kelly and Michael” for four years and won two Daytime Emmys along the way. He dramatically left the show in 2016, but he has since settled at "GMA."
At the Thursday's event, he recalled how he made the transition from the sports world to the TV world.
He credited Constance Schwartz, of SMAC Entertainment, with helping him break in to daytime TV.
“I remember... I filled in for Regis one time…[Schwartz] goes ‘That’s the next thing; that’s what you are going to do,’” Strahan said.
“...When you’re an athlete it’s OK to talk about football but if you want to venture out of that lane there is a lot of people that go ‘No, you were a great athlete, you are doing well as a commentator [and] that is enough.’ It took someone like Constance to say 'No, that is not enough. You are allowed to do more than just one thing.' And once she got that through my skull we pushed forward with it and the rest is history.”
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