Just after receiving his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2020, Burt Ward—who played Robin on the 1960s Batman TV series—decided to have a little chat with Page Six about his apparently massive penis, for whatever reason. As Ward explained back then, he’d gotten himself into some trouble with the Catholic League of Decency in his Batman days due to the way his junk looked in his tight-fitting shorts.
“They thought that Robin had a very large bulge for television,” he recalled, presumably with a huge smile on his face. Evidently, this became such a problem that Ward was prescribed medication to help “shrink him up.”
Ward had previously touched on the subject in his 1995 book Boy Wonder: My Life in Tights, and went into more detail regarding the doctor’s appointment and the aftermath of the story going public. According to Ward, he was taken to a bungalow on the 20th Century Fox lot one day where he was greeted by a “special doctor” with a thick German accent.
From there, Ward said the man sent him off with a mystery prescription. “I don’t know if it was saltpeter or what. Whatever it was, I took it every two hours while I was shooting for the entire next show.”
The Bizarre Reason ‘Batman’ Star Burt Ward Says He Was Put on Medication
To Ward’s surprise, the medicine actually worked, and he successfully became a shadow of his former self. But before long, he started to consider the potential side effects of what he was taking. Moving forward, Ward decided to ditch the pills and do his best to avoid “exposing the monster” to the folks at home. However, just when he thought he was out of the woods, he was asked about the rumor during an interview with Look magazine, leading to a wave of unwanted attention
As Ward tells it, this wave of attention culminated in a 14-year-old boy reaching out to him for help with his own bulge issues. “Would you please write to me and tell me the name and phone number of the doctor who helped you get smaller?” the boy asked. Ward responded with an autographed photo and a note telling him that if he was really worried, he should consult with his own physician.
“Otherwise he shouldn’t worry,” the actor wrote, “because someday he would appreciate the gift God (or genetics) gave him. I certainly have!”
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