Eric André spills on getting shredded for his show, running out of 'SNL' taping while drunk and hanging with a stoned Urkel

“I thought it was gonna go one season,” Eric André laughs.

On Sunday, though, The Eric Andre Show — the comedian’s anarchistic, satirical take on late-night talk shows unspooled the first episode of its sixth season.

Like the 50 twisted episodes (and three specials) that preceded it on Cartoon Network’s adult-targeted programming block Adult Swim, the episode is equal parts surreal, absurd, shocking, hilarious and deeply uncomfortable. He destroys his set, uses a bat to beat a man dressed as a prince, asks guest Lil Nas X when was the last time his mother had sex, and, while posing as pest control, pranks an office worker by having a toddler-sized bug crash through the wall.

Future episodes will bring a very agitated Daymond John (of Shark Tank fame, and whom Andre calls one of his favorite guests ever) and a very unsettled Jaleel White, who nervously puffs on a vape pen as things get weirder and weirder around him. “He likes marijuana, nothing wrong with that,” André says of the actor best known for playing Steve Urkel in the ’90s sitcom favorite Family Matters. “He was high. He was shook.” (Watch our full interview below.)

Other guests this season will include Donald Glover, Jon Hamm, Jaden Smith, Megan Good, Mia Khalifa and Chet Hanks. We can’t tell you if any of them walk out, like Lauren Conrad famously did in Season 3 (after André seemingly ate his own vomit) and T.I. in Season 4 after a man came out with no pants (or underwear) on. André says other past guests, namely Tichina Arnold, Robin Givens and Tia Carrera, “kinda slowly moonwalked back. It wasn't technically a walkout, but it was a stroll towards the exit.” (The show’s booking trick? Guests typically are not told which interview on their press circuit is about to take place.)

Gone this year is co-host Hannibal Buress, who left during Season 5. Another big difference: yet another jarring body modification for the 40-year-old André. It’s all part of the show’s bonkers aesthetic. The host shed a dramatic amount of weight for Season 4 and gained more than 40 pounds for Season 5. So for Season 6, as the press release for the show proclaims, André got “ripped and shredded, with taut nips and glistening six-pack abs.” He also sports a new slicked-back ponytail.

André flaunts his new bod often and early during the show, but the internet got a sneak peek at his new physique months ago via a NSFW photo posted of him and then-girlfriend Emily Ratajkowski.

He doesn’t really want to talk about how their short-lived coupling took the tabloids by storm, but he will tell you how much it sucks to get toned.

“I’ll never do any of ’em again,” he says of the body modifications. “They’re all a nightmare and they’re all horrible for you. Even that one, which was the healthiest one. Anybody over the age of 22 that has abs is a psychopath. Or unemployed. It takes so much work and effort to see your abs. For a man to see his abs Is a full-time job. I mean, it’s unbelievable. You have to be obsessed on a psychotic level.”

The comedian didn’t see his abs for very long.

“The second I wrapped, I went to Prince Street Pizza [in Manhattan] and I ate an entire pizza, went to sleep, woke up and ate like three bagels. That’s no exaggeration,” he says. “And then I went on a drinking bender. The most insane drinking bender in my life. Like, there’s a lost week of my memory. … Then I forgot I had a trip to Portugal with my friends. We went to Portugal and drank our weight in wine. Then I got back, and this was only a few weeks after we wrapped. I stepped on the scale and had gained all my weight back. What took me like six months to get [down] to took me like four weeks to put on. And then I was like, ‘F**k it, man. I’m a comedian. I don’t need to be in shape.”

Shortly after that long bender, a friend informed André that he had been kicked out of Saturday Night Live. That wasn’t exactly true, but he’s still putting the pieces together, and came to a revelation during our interview.

From the information we gathered, the date was May 14, 2022. Selena Gomez was hosting SNL, with Post Malone as the musical guest.

“I was drinking hurricanes all day. And they call ’em slurricanes for a reason,” he says. “[SNL player] Sarah Sherman got me tickets. And then I got there and I’m sitting in the audience and my stomach started [to hurt]. I thought I was gonna throw up. And I don’t know if you’ve been to a taping, but the seats are very close together. So my stomach was like a washing machine and I was like, ‘F**k, I cannot throw up at Saturday Night Live. Like, I don’t want to show disrespect. So I looked at my date and I go, ‘We have to walk out, we have to go right now.’ And I ran outside and got fresh air and then I went to a halal cart and I just like ate like 10 pounds of halal meat. And then I felt great.

“But that was a mess. My therapist and I have been talking about that for months.”

No doubt how some of the unsuspecting guests on The Eric Andre Show have felt.

New episodes of The Eric Andre Show are premiering Sundays at midnight on Adult Swim.