Fred Rogers, best known for playing Mister Rogers on Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, had as spotless a reputation as an entertainer could hope for. In his lifetime, he was involved in exactly zero scandals, and seemingly nobody had an unkind word to say about him. Sure, Rogers became the subject of some urban legends over the years, but none of them served to tarnish his clean-cut image.
In fact, there was no real indication that Rogers was any different than the beloved character he portrayed on TV until A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood—the Rogers biopic starring Tom Hanks—came out in 2019.
It was around that time that Rogers’s widow, Joanne, started doing interviews about what her late husband was like behind the scenes. According to her, Rogers was a very funny person in private and enjoyed making her laugh. However, Joanne made sure to point out that he didn’t appreciate jokes that denigrated people in any way. Instead, Joanne described Rogers’s sense of humor as being “whimsical” and “silly”:
The Wild Side of Mister Rogers, According to His Wife
And, apparently, farting in public was something Joanne considered whimsical silliness, because that was one of Rogers’s go-to gags. As Joanne explained to the Los Angeles Times following A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood’s release, she had one request when the filmmakers first approached her about the project: that they wouldn’t treat Rogers like a saint. Joanne went on to tell them how Rogers would often let one rip when they were out at events that weren’t all that exciting. “He would just raise one cheek, and he would look at me and smile,” she remembered with a laugh.
Rogers was also evidently a fan of dirty jokes, and didn’t care who knew it. “He was not prissy. Not at all,” Joanne recalled. “He ran around in the droopiest drawers. They were at least three sizes too big, but they were comfortable, and he liked them,” she continued. “It didn’t matter if there was company here—he’d wear those and a T-shirt. He was not a modest person.”
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