Danny Andrews, now 35, became a legendary meme as a teenager after describing his fish and rice cakes diet as part of the 2007 documentary Baby Faced Body Builders
A bodybuilder who became an overnight meme after describing his “fish and rice cakes” diet in a viral video has described the brutal impact his fame initially had.
Danny Andrews, now 35, was taking part in the 2007 documentary Baby Faced Body Builders for BBC Three when he unwittingly became an online star.
The then 16-year-old revealed how he got into shape, telling the camera at “eight o’clock in the morning, I’ll have fish and a rice cake … at 10, just fish … at 12, fish and a rice cake” – in a clip which has since had millions of views.
Danny, originally from Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, is now a barber by trade and runs his own shop in Preston, Lancs. In recent years, he’s even launched a protein rice cake brand.
Describing how the documentary unfolded, Danny told YouTube show People are Deep: “Instead of just saying I eat six meals of fish and every other it’s with a rice cake, I just did exactly what they said.
“And I’d done the diet myself as well and it worked. And it wasn’t my diet forever, it was literally for two to three weeks. You’d carb deplete, get all the glycogen out of your muscles, then you’d carb up for two days and then you’d fill up.”
Danny revealed that he doesn’t even like fish and only worked it into his diet because it’s got fewer calories than turkey or chicken.
After the video came out, people started yelling “fish boy” at Danny as they drove past him and he was even subjected to vile bullying at parties when he was in his late teens.
He said: “There’d be a load of lads sniggering at me and showing videos at house parties and back then I wasn’t confident so it literally felt like bullying. And I’d leave the party and everyone would laugh at me because I was still that guy, I still looked the same, I still spoke the same.
“I’ve got quite a broad Northern accent. Now, I’ve got a thick skin and I know that if you put yourself out there you know that somebody’s going to say something.”
Devastatingly for Danny, the meme would even put women off. He said they’d stop texting mid-conversation after realising he was the ‘Fish and Rice Cakes Guy’.
Danny believes it was because the video was the only reference they had of him and that “people thought I was special”, with his mates forced to defend him.
Back in 2021, Danny met up with the Wealdstone Raider, who became an internet sensation in 2013 after a clip of him squaring up to an opposition fan at his local football club Wealdstone FC went viral.
Following the interview, Danny learned to embrace fame and laugh along with his fans, and is now “milking it for everything it’s worth”.
He’s appeared on several TV dating shows such as First Dates, Celebs Go Dating and most recently Channel 4’s Love Triangle, where he met 29-year-old Bristol-based social media manager Sadie Bass.
He said: “I went on Love Triangle to have a holiday and have fun – and promote the rice cakes. I never thought that I would meet the love of my life on there, but Sadie’s absolutely my soulmate and I’m so happy that embracing the meme has led to us meeting.
“We’ve been together for eight months now, but we couldn’t go public with our relationship for the first seven months as we had signed an NDA so not to ruin the show. Things are going along really well though since going public.”
