The Unspoken Truth Of Kaley Cuoco
A lead actor on "The Big Bang Theory" for 12 seasons, Kaley Cuoco has been one of the most visible stars on the small screen since the late 2000s. Alongside Jim Parsons and Johnny Galecki, she formed the headlining trio of one of the biggest sitcoms of its day, often sitting at the top of the ratings above stalwarts like "Modern Family" and "How I Met Your Mother." But while "TBBT" is the show that made her a superstar, it wasn't her first claim to fame.
Before she was Penny, neighbor of Sheldon and Leonard on "The Big Bang Theory," Cuoco was already an established actor, having starred for three seasons on "8 Simple Rules" and made guest appearances all over the dial. Today, even after "TBBT" has long since left the airwaves, Cuoco remains as popular as ever, with fans all over the world. Yet there's still a lot that many of those fans may not know about her, beyond her career highlights and her well-publicized romance with co-star Johnny Galecki. From her roller coaster childhood to her troubles in life and love, there are many unspoken truths about Kaley Cuoco that need to be spoken about.
She was homeschooled by choice
She might be best known for her role on "The Big Bang Theory," but Kaley Cuoco wasn't new to Hollywood when she took the role of Penny in 2007. Not only was she previously one of the teen stars of "8 Simple Rules," she was also an actor as far back as her grade school days, when she was doing work in commercials and guest appearances on shows like "My So-Called Life," "Ellen," and "Northern Exposure." So it might not be a surprise to learn that Cuoco was homeschooled as a child actor, but it might raise an eyebrow to learn it was her own choice.
When an interviewer for Parade magazine asked if her budding career as an actor in commercials made her popular in school as a kid, she revealed that it actually made things harder for her socially. "I wouldn't say I was bullied, but I was definitely a bit of an outcast," she recalled. "It was more the kids thinking I thought I was cool." Splitting time between school and trying to build an acting career clearly proved challenging, so Kaley chose to be homeschooled even before she hit middle school. "I started homeschooling in fifth grade and I was much happier."
She went to the prom with a co-star
Working as both an actor and a student, Kaley Cuoco had a busy life growing up. Getting her schooling at home, one might think that Cuoco may have missed out on the normal excitement of being a kid, from school dances to birthday parties to team sports. But on one occasion she got the full experience thanks to one of her Hollywood friends, Ashley Tisdale. When both were high school age, the two friends went to the prom together, with Tisdale hoping to give Cuoco the chance to go to the coming-of-age event that she'd otherwise miss by not attending school.
"Ashley Tisdale and I grew up together," Cuoco told Playboy. "She asked me to be her date to her high school prom when I was on ['8 Simple Rules'] and had started to get some public attention." Hoping to blend in and not attract too much attention, she wore "the simplest black dress," which wound up having the opposite effect: "These mean girls kept coming at me: 'Oh, you think you're so classy you couldn't wear a prom dress? Do you think you're at the Academy Awards?'"
Getting the full "mean girls" treatment only reinforced that she'd made the right decision to homeschool. "It was the worst night ever," Cuoco admitted. "I don't think I missed anything being homeschooled."
She almost chose tennis over acting
While Kaley Cuoco wanted to be an actor from a young age, it wasn't her only passion, nor the only skill she could have translated into a career. Before she chose Hollywood as her full-time path, she was actually considering a career in sports, as she was a regionally ranked tennis player even as a child. She actually picked up the racket for the first time as a toddler, playing tennis when she was just three years old, when her parents had her attend a tennis club.
Cuoco's tennis days began years before she ever went in front of a camera, but she wasn't one to focus on just one activity. Her parents pushed her to broaden her horizons, especially as she showed an interest in acting. "If I wanted to audition, I had to play tennis," she told the San Diego Union-Tribune in 2012. "If I played tennis I had to be in a dance class. I always had multiple activities, so I never had to count on any one of them to feel successful."
At one point, Cuoco placed in the South California Tennis Association's amateur division, but despite her impressive skill, the clay on the court couldn't compete with the bright lights of Tinseltown.
She's a skilled equestrian
While she didn't get to participate in the usual school activities that most kids do, Kaley Cuoco did get the chance to nurture her love of animals, becoming a skilled horse rider when she was growing up. "I think I first rode a small pony when I was a little girl," she told Equestrian Life magazine. "I had a passion for horses, dogs, cats, and just about anything with fur or feathers, but especially horses ... I don't think any of that has ever changed."
But Cuoco's equestrian passion is more than just a hobby, and she takes the sport seriously, involved in the care and grooming of her horses in addition to riding. "I'm an equestrian in every sense of the word," Cuoco added. "I just love horses and being with them ... I started taking it seriously when I was about 16 and I have been passionate about the whole equestrian world ever since." For Cuoco, the serenity of horses is the perfect respite from the long days and nights on TV and movie sets. "You need a break from work and I always ran to my horses," she explained. "I just loved being with them and would spend ages grooming or just going for a hack."
She backs a number of important philanthropic causes
Many actors in Hollywood are involved in charitable causes, and Kaley Cuoco is one of those celebrities who truly cares about the causes she supports. First and foremost is her philanthropic work to help animals, as her love of horses and dogs goes well beyond just enjoying their company. She's worked closely with Stand Up For Pits, a nonprofit foundation that works to help save pit bull terriers from being abandoned and lost. She's also worked with PETA and Paw Works Pet Adoption, on top of adopting rescue pups personally.
Animals aren't the only focus of Cuoco's philanthropic efforts, though. She's also performed at events benefiting the Alzheimer's Association (alongside the cast of "The Big Bang Theory"), and attended fundraisers for the Epidermolysis Bullosa Medical Research Foundation, which focuses on helping children with the debilitating skin condition. Becoming a mom also made her charitable work more meaningful, as she told Entertainment Tonight. "I never thought I would be a mom," she said. "So I see these kids out there and I just can't imagine if my kid was hurting all the time, you know? I felt this way before but obviously, you don't know until you have one."
There was one role she desperately wanted to win
Every actor can probably look back at their career and pinpoint a role they wish they hadn't passed on, from Matt Damon's lament about "Avatar" to Will Smith's regret over not taking the role of Neo in "The Matrix." But for Kaley Cuoco, it's not a role she said "no" to that still gets her down, it's a role she auditioned for but didn't get. It was a dream role she worked hard just to secure an audition for, and she still looks back longingly at what could have been.
"It was the sequel for 'Knives Out,'" Cuoco revealed to Glamour. Having aced an audition, Cuoco was so convinced that she had landed the part that she was all packed and ready to fly around the world for filming in Greece. "And then I didn't get it," she said. "I was so devastated. And I'm not [normally] devastated over roles. I cried and I cried all night long." Cuoco was so down in the dumps she almost passed on another project, "Meet Cute." Despite some initial misgivings, she read the script and fell in love with the story, which paired her with "SNL" star Pete Davidson. "It just shows you that you're where you're supposed to be," she added.
She didn't think 8 Simple Rules should have continued
Kaley Cuoco got her biggest break when she was cast in the John Ritter sitcom "8 Simple Rules ... for Dating My Teenage Daughter." The show was a hit in its first year, but tragedy struck when Ritter died during filming not long after production began on Season 2, in one of the most shocking instances of a show losing its star in their prime.
Though "8 Simple Rules" continued, with guest star David Spade bumped up to series regular, the mood around the set was understandably somber. In the immediate aftermath of Ritter's sudden passing, Cuoco was more uncomfortable than most, and wasn't convinced that the show should go on at all. "I was mad," she said in an interview with Teen Vogue in 2004 (via the New York Post). "I didn't think it was right. That first day [back on the set], I couldn't get through my lines, I was sobbing. I couldn't breathe. What were we doing here? '8 Simple Rules' might as well have been called 'The John Ritter Show.' I didn't want to do it without him," she said.
While she was the only member of the cast to object to continuing, it's worth mentioning that Ritter's family gave the show their blessing. In the end, though, the show couldn't survive long without its star, and it came to a close after Season 3.
She based her Harley Quinn performance on herself
After more than a decade starring in one of the hottest shows on television, Kaley Cuoco was in demand across the dial. But not everyone wanted her for her recognizable face: in 2019 she was cast in the coveted title role of DC's adult animated series, "Harley Quinn." The character, first introduced in "Batman: The Animated Series," had already become one of the most popular comic book characters on the page and the screen. She'd been played in live-action by Margot Robbie in "Suicide Squad," and now it was Cuoco who'd supply her voice for her very own TV series.
For the role, Cuoco could have chosen to emulate the character's original voice actor, Arleen Sorkin, or even to mimic Robbie, but Cuoco did something different. "There have been so many Harley Quinns, and obviously with 'Suicide Squad' Margot was playing her so incredibly well and so specific, that I didn't want her to sound like anybody else," Cuoco told Entertainment Weekly. After ditching the idea of a Boston accent that was suggested by producers, Cuoco decided she was going to just be herself. "It really just became mostly me screaming. It's a lot of me, and I've kinda turned it into my own thing." It's a fine tradition too, as original Quinn actor Arleen Sorkin also based her performance on herself (though it helped that the character was partly based on her as well).
She doesn't see herself as a sex symbol
As the female star of "The Big Bang Theory," Kaley Cuoco was the celebrity crush for an entire generation of adolescent geeks. And once she became a star she found herself the subject of more than one steamy photo shoot in men's magazines like "Maxim," "FHM," and "Esquire," among others. Yet no matter how many fans she might have that see her as the epitome of feminine beauty and an object of desire, Cuoco doesn't see herself as a sex symbol. In fact, she doesn't even seem to understand why so many people see her as one.
"I hate almost everything about my body," she told Playboy, while admitting that she is proud of her rock hard abs. She also revealed that she goes to great lengths to stay in shape, with regular yoga, spinning, and of course horseback riding on her schedule. But she still doesn't really understand the obsession many onlookers have with her body, and doesn't even like being uncovered. "I would rather stick a pencil in my eyeball than be naked," she said.
She shot an action movie while pregnant
Kaley Cuoco has had her share of romantic entanglements, and she seems to focus on finding partners who share her passions. She was married to tennis pro Ryan Sweeting for three years, then equestrian Karl Cook, both after a long relationship with her co-star Johnny Galecki. In 2022, she got together with fellow actor Tom Pelphrey, and the two quickly had a family in the making. Pregnant with her first child later that same year, Cuoco could have taken an acting hiatus to prepare for a baby, but both she and Pelphrey kept working — with Cuoco even signing up for an action movie.
The actor herself talked about how she'd actually been off shooting the film before she'd announced her pregnancy to the world. She revealed the news on her Instagram page (per People), posting a shot of her with her stunt double Monette Moio, with a caption that read, "Hey [Monette], remember that time we shot an action film while I was pregnant and horribly sick and you had to take care of me and be me and do all the things as non pregnant me?!"
It doesn't sound like things were too bad for her, though, because in another image Cuoco showed off her daily naps on the set, writing, "This was every day between setups lol."
She didn't think The Big Bang Theory was going to end
When hardcore fans of "The Big Bang Theory" first got word that the series would be coming to an end, they were probably beside themselves with disappointment. But nobody was more shocked than Kaley Cuoco, who'd spent more than a decade starring in the series as Penny. The news came during what would have otherwise been an ordinary all-hands-on-deck meeting with the cast and series co-creator Chuck Lorre. But when she got there, it was anything but ordinary, and series star Jim Parsons had the most important words to say.
"Jim said, 'I don't think I can continue on,'" Cuoco told Variety in 2021. "I was so shocked that I was literally like, 'Continue on with what?' Like, I didn't even know what he was talking about. I looked at Chuck: 'Wow. I thought we were — I'm so blown away right now.'" But once the news settled in, there was no question about ending the show, the way she'd wanted to end "8 Simple Rules" when star John Ritter passed away. "That was the one thing we all agreed on," she revealed. "We came in together, we go out together."
She's one of the highest paid women in television
When one thinks of the highest-paid actors on television, one probably thinks of Jerry Seinfeld or the cast of "Friends." In its heyday, though, the cast of "The Big Bang Theory" was also among the most well-paid, and in 2015 Kaley Cuoco topped the Forbes list of highest-paid actresses on television at the time. She was #3 the year prior, behind only "Law and Order: Special Victims Unit" star Mariska Hargitay and "Modern Family" lead Sofia Vergara.
In 2015, though, Cuoco was crowned queen of television thanks to her "Big Bang Theory" salary, which reportedly saw her collecting a whopping $1 million per episode. That was the same as co-stars Jim Parsons and Johnny Galecki, which was noteworthy for the lack of gender disparity. But that's hardly her only source of income, as endorsement deals with the likes of Toyota and Priceline also netted her some $2 million, proving how sought-after Cuoco had become thanks to her star sitcom status. Even with a small pay cut for the show's final seasons, Cuoco was still collecting more than $20 million a year.
She has no shame about plastic surgery
Plastic surgery is fairly common among Hollywood stars, but you might be surprised to learn how many celebrities don't like to discuss it. From avoiding the subject to outright denying it, many stars simply aren't comfortable admitting that they've had artificial help in looking beautiful for the camera, shaving off years and wrinkles thanks to the work of plastic surgeons. But Kaley Cuoco isn't one of them: Unlike so many actors, the "Big Bang Theory" star is more than open about the work she's had done and how it's helped both herself and her career.
"Years ago, I had my nose done and my boobs — best thing I ever did," she said defiantly in an interview with Women's Health (via ABC News). "Recently I had a filler in a line in my neck I've had since I was 12." And it's not just that she's so willing to talk about her surgery, but also how she insists that it's nothing to be ashamed of. "As much as you want to love your inner self ... I'm sorry, you also want to look good," she acknowledged. "I don't think you should do it for a man or anyone else, but if it makes you feel confident, that's amazing."