Handsome, humble Ross "The Intern" Mathews is the boy next door made good

“Listen,” Ross says, leaning over his desk at NBC. “My life is so boring when I’m not at work. I have a dog and I walk her.”

He looks at the giant framed photo of his beloved rescue pooch, Louise, sitting on his desk.

“I have a few close friends, and we get dinner occasionally, but usually it’s me and my dog,” he says. “Wouldn’t it be a way juicier article if I was, like, club-hopping? That’s what the kids call it, right?"

“Well,” he laughs. “I’d better totally stop wearing underwear.”

A NEW EXPERIENCE

Today, Mr. Mathews is scared.

Now, lest you get the wrong idea, Ross is a pretty brave guy. He’s jumped out of a plane on The Tonight Show, shared the View table with Barbara, Joy and Elisabeth and allowed America to watch him shed more than 41 pounds on Celebrity Fit Club. (Plus, he’s eaten dessert at the same table as Perez Hilton and lived…without fork wounds to the eye.) But today’s adventure is something he’s never done before.

“Hello, everybody,” he says in one of his Talky Blog videos. “I’m panicking! Because I’m running so late for a photo shoot…and it’s a big deal and it’s kind of fun. I have to get all dressed up, and it’s in the Hollywood Hills.”

Ross’ eyes get wide with excitement and he pulls the camera in close.

“Can you believe that?” he whispers. “I’m so nervous about it and have, like, anxiety tummy.” He grins, his eyes sparkling. “Seriously,” he says, as if he can’t believe it himself, “when did my life go from working at McDonald’s to having a photo shoot in the Hollywood Hills? That’s ridiculous!”

ONCE UPON A TIME

Every good story has to have the right beginning, and Ross’ is no exception. He grew up with a supportive family in a small town in Washington state called Mt. Vernon, which exports more tulips than all of Holland. Did you know that?

“Nobody does!” Ross laughs. “I was just me in a small town, which wasn’t the easiest thing, but I didn’t know any other way to be.”

He sold berries by the side of the road, watched hours of ice skating and was a total theater kid in high school, winning Thespian of the Year, 1998 and double state champion in individual events in forensics. He even went to the senior prom as a freshman with the most popular girl in school.

“My popularity was done by the end of the evening,” he laughs. “But for one night, I was totally it: capital I-T.”

He worked at Lane Bryant in the mall, did his friends’ makeup with a burnt cork and stayed after school in the debate room so he wouldn’t miss the Spice Girls appearing on Oprah. Las Chicas Picantes were actually his first concert, and after buying a brand-new outfit to wear to see SpiceWorld, he heard the horrible news: the unbreakable Spice bond was, well, broken by Ginger.

“She was my favorite, and then the bitch dropped out of the band!” he says. “I was devastated!”

He graduated college with a degree in communications and moved to Los Angeles, where he landed an internship at The Tonight Show.

{mosimage} “I just felt it in my soul that this was the start,” he says. “Meanwhile, I was cleaning out coffee machines, so nobody else saw this as the beginning of anything big.”

On his last day, the person who was supposed to cover the Ocean’s Eleven premiere dropped out. Since he was known around the office for his clever jokes, Ross stepped in and pulled it off.

He’s been a regular on The Tonight Show ever since, doing everything from presenting at the Country Music Television awards (“in a bedazzled outfit”) to co-hosting and producing a behind-the-scenes webshow (The John And Ross Show) and writing a daily blog (nbc.com/rossblog).

“We’re almost up to a million hits a month now,” he says. “It started as nothing, but just by doing it every day and being very diligent, I’ve turned it into something, which I’m so proud of.”

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SPEAKING OF PROUD…

You can’t write a Ross story without mentioning Louise. His “paw-fect dog-ter” appears in almost all of his Talky Blogs and his office is plastered with photos of her. (Oh, and if you want to sit down, you have to move her stuffed Grinch toy.) “I always had a dream of having a small dog,” Ross says. “My dad was a hunter, so we always had big, big, big dogs, but I had never experienced the love of a little belly falling asleep in your arms, and I always wanted that.”

{mosimage}Sadly, Louise was unavailable for an interview (she was getting her hair done), but she has a dramatic life story, pre-Ross: The pup and her two brothers were raised by their homeless, single mother in a downtown Los Angeles pipe. Luckily, all four dogs were rescued and adopted out.

“I got Louise shortly after my father died. I had been away from home since I was 18,” Ross says, “so I was used to being alone, but I felt even more so after he died. So having Louise in my life, taking care of her and having love in my face every day was the best possible medicine.” Caring for Louise has caused Ross to develop parental feelings of his own.

“When she whines, I lactate,” he giggles. “I’m that into her.”

ROSS-ERCISE

It wasn’t until Celebrity Fit Club that our man Mathews felt the heat of a higher wattage spotlight—and the interest in his personal life that comes with it.

“People ask me a lot, ‘Was it scary to let the nation know how much you weighed?’” Ross says. “I had been fat my entire life, and I have a soft spot for people in that situation. It’s no secret when you’re a big person, so no, I had no issue getting on that scale.”

Nudged to do the show by Rosie O’Donnell (“She e-mailed me and said, ‘Go learn how to take care of your body. I’m 44 and I still don’t know how.’), Ross was surprised by how much people responded to him.

“As I started losing the weight and being really honest about how difficult it was on the blog, I got thousands of e-mails from people who were inspired by what I did—that came as a complete shock-a-roo for me,” he says. “It inspired me to keep going, and it’s kept me accountable after the show ended.”

{mosimage}One wall of his office is completely covered in letters just like those, and he looks over at them all. “It was so unexpected,” he says. “That me going to the gym or me eating healthy would tell someone in the Midwest they could do it.” Later, on his blog, he summed up his thoughts. “I went into the experience hoping for a lifestyle change,” he writes. “I never thought that it would change my whole life.”

LIFE AT HOME

Ross’s family has always been supportive of him, and he and his mother are very close. They talk up to eight times a day and just got back from taking a Rosie cruise together. “I had never been on a cruise before, and when I got on, there was a karaoke bar called Dazzles,” he laughs. “Hello? Dazzles! I’m like, ‘There’s my next week!’ I have the voice of an angel.” He pauses, then winks. “A little bit.”

Although Ross and Rosie’s eat-your-heart-out-Elton John-and-George Michael duet of “Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me” hasn’t hit YouTube yet, it definitely left an impression. “It was a moment,” he says. “So much so that I would get up every day after and say, ‘Hey everybody, thanks for coming to Dazzles tonight!’ like I was hosting it.” Guess what? Now he’s the official karaoke host for all the Rosie cruises.

Sharing all of his success with his mom has made his journey even more special. When Ross was a guest host on The View, his mother took her first trip east of Idaho to sit in the front row of the audience. After a little jab from Joy Behar about Ross supposedly losing his testosterone along with his weight (to which he quipped, “I never had any!”), Mama Mathews got the last word. “He’s the son you always wanted, right?” Barbara Walters asked. She answered immediately: “Yes.”

ROSIE OH!

Rosie O’Donnell’s name has popped up several times already, and for good reason. She’s Ross’ hero and inspiration. “Growing up, I connected with her, not even knowing why,” he says. “As I started getting into this business and whatnot, I met her serendipitously. We have connected like I always dreamed that we would. She is more than I ever thought she would be, and I had high standards to begin with.”

He smiles as he speaks, not hiding his excitement. “She sees in me what people saw in her,” he says. “And that blows my mind.”

La O’Donnell invited Ross to attend a Vegas performance of the True Colors tour this year, leading to a day he’ll never forget. He and Rosie were walking backstage before the show went up, when he heard someone singing the song “True Colors.”

“I realized it was Cyndi Lauper, in her dressing room on the floor, candles burning, with the Indigo Girls and Erasure, all singing with her. I walked in with Rosie and we started singing along, too, and everybody started crying,” he says. “I was like, ‘Now this is a moment.’”

For once, Ross has to search to find just the right words. “Rosie always says, when she started her show, there was no Will & Grace, there was no Queer Eye,” he says. “So now, just to see this beautiful thing, out and proud and loud, was fantastic and moving. That was one of those moments when I was so grateful to be there.”

LOVE, AMERICAN STYLE

With all his success, dating is still the one area Ross hasn’t quite figured out. “I don’t think I’m good at it,” he says. “I’ve been so focused on working and making it up as I go that I feel that I’ve lost the ability to interact personally. I’m not good at playing anything cool. If there’s rules to the game, nobody ever taught me.”

He shrugs and makes a joke about sharing a box of wine with Louise in his backyard, almost under his breath. “It would be nice to be swept off my feet,” he says. “I want to cut through all the rest: the ones that don’t work out. I’m waiting for the one.”

{mosimage}So is he a romantic? “I’m totally romantic,” he says, then laughs. “Or not. I don’t know.” While he may be single, he’s definitely not bored. Ross is obsessed with awards season. He belongs to multiple Oscar-predictor websites and forums and wakes up at 5:30 in the morning to hear the Oscar nominations (“Not because I’m expecting one myself!”). “If they gave out awards for Best Haircut,” he says, “I’d watch. I’m a fanatic!”

He remains dedicated to continuing his work with The Tonight Show and is grateful for the way they’ve allowed him to grow and to follow his own humor. Ross’ role on the show has evolved from red carpet interviewer to “extreme Ross” (“Demolition derbies, skydiving—basically, just trying to kill me!”) to focusing more on his own life. A dream of his is coming true as well—he has a holding deal with Rosie’s company for the two of them to work together—but he’s not sharing any secrets…yet!

THE BEGINNING

Well, there may not have been a scandalous skeleton in Ross’ closet, but we did end up making him scream on the shoot. A parrot named Big Bird gave his arm a love bite—but what’s a little nibbly beak action for an up-and-comer like Mr. Mathews?

“My photo shoot was so so so much fun! I felt like a prince,” he writes the day after on his blog. “But not like one of those snooty princes. More like one of those common folk who don’t find out they’re a prince until later in life. Like, very ABC Family movie/Anne Hathaway sorta thing.”

{mosimage}The one constant in this prince-of-a-guy’s life—and the secret to his success—has always been his sense of humor. “Humor has been my pot of gold. Not that I’m chasing it,” he says, thinking. “You know how sometimes a bucket of fries can be bottomless? That’s what it’s been like for me. But translate that to gold. And humor. Because I’ve gone there and taken something from every aspect of my life, through the good times and the horribly tragic times.”

“I’ve found comfort in it,” he says, smiling that megawatt smile of his. “It’s the biggest gift I’ve been given.” As he turns 28 this month, Ross owes his impressive accomplishments to his charm, his wit and his pluck—and most of all, to how comfortable he is in his own skin. “It’s so interesting to be an active work in progress, you know?” he writes in another blog entry. “I may not yet be finished with the journey (I don’t know if we ever are), but I’m further along than I’ve ever been before.” Guess there is a market for a sweet and sincere small-town boy with the September 24 birthday. Happy birthday, Ross.

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