Heavy/Getty/ABC/YouTube Alfonso Ribeiro.
Alfonso Ribeiro says his most memorable acting role ruined his acting career.
In May 2024, the ”Dancing With the Stars” host spoke out about his long run as a TV sitcom star. But while his sitcom days were some of the best of his life, Ribeiro admitted he paid a price for his stint on one of the biggest hit comedies of the 1990s.
Here’s what you need to know:
Alfonso Ribeiro Said He Sacrificed His Acting Career to Play Carlton Banks on ‘The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air’
ABCAlfonso Ribeiro and Julianne Hough host “Dancing with the Stars.”
Ribeiro was a child actor who starred in “The Tap Dance Kid” and “Silver Spoons.” But in 1990, he landed a big TV role. Riberio played rich kid Carlton Banks from 1990 to 1996 on NBC’s “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.”
According to IMDb, Ribeiro appeared in all 147 episodes of the NBC sitcom that also starred Will Smith. Ribeiro became famous for his character’s quirky “Carlton Dance.” The memorable dance was set to the Tom Jones hit “It’s Not Unusual.”
In a May 2024 interview with Closer Weekly, Ribeiro revealed why he segued from acting to hosting. “Playing Carlton on Fresh Prince became a sacrifice,” he admitted in the interview. “I used to always say doing Carlton was the greatest and worst thing that ever happened to me. It was one of the greatest roles that I ever was fortunate enough to play, but it was also the role that stopped me from acting again because people couldn’t see me as anything else. The sacrifice was not having an acting career anymore.”
Ribeiro added that while he does enjoy being a host—in addition to DWTS, he is the host of “America’s Funniest Home Videos”—he wouldn’t say no to a return to acting. “I would go back to acting if it was exactly the right thing,” he said.
“I’m enjoying being a host and am very happy with it,” he added. “My happiest moments, career-wise, are winning ‘Dancing With the Stars’ and now becoming host of ‘Dancing With the Stars.’”
Alfonso Ribeiro Said Carlton Was Nothing Like Him
Ribeiro couldn’t exactly relate to Carlton. He once told Today that the character was his polar opposite. “They made me play a character, and I was very different from Carlton,” he said in 2022. “I grew up in the Bronx. When you, all of a sudden, you’re this guy, a nerdy guy from Bel-Air, it’s like that’s not my life. That’s not who I am.”
He previously told Variety, “I played a character that was as far from myself as possible. They would have to bring me a CD and some articles for me to read up on what the character liked, because I had never heard of Tom Jones. I didn’t know Barry Manilow. These weren’t people that I grew up with or experienced as a teenager. I grew up in the Bronx; I was a hip-hop kid.”
He also made up “The Carlton Dance” after a “Fresh Prince” script simply noted “Carlton dances.”
He was inspired by Courteney Cox’s dance on the video for Bruce Springsteen’s 1984 hit, “Dancing in the Dark.” “I said, ‘That is the corniest dance on the planet that I know of, so why don’t I do that?’” Ribeiro admitted.
READ NEXT: DWTS Pro Names Dream Dance Partner Ahead of Season 33