How Teri Hatcher Got Injured On The Set Of Desperate Housewives

Teri Hatcher was adorably clumsy and slightly (okay, definitely) unlucky as Susan Mayer in "Desperate Housewives." From being hit by a mechanical bull to falling into a wedding cake, Hatcher's most famous character rarely missed an opportunity to embarrass herself. Her offbeat personality added depth to her character, which Screen Rant ranked as the second-best in the popular ABC show. "She's sweet, interesting, a good friend, a good mom, and also super creative," Screen Rant's Aya Tsintziras argued.

Hatcher's own personality may have inspired the showrunners to make Susan accident-prone. "The writers have cottoned on to the fact that I like physical comedy, so who knows what horrors lie in wait for me?" Hatcher told Metro in 2009, when the show was still on. Luckily, Hatcher was in great physical health and could take anything the writers threw at her. "When I turned forty-five, I was in amazing shape. I had done the triathlon. I was happy in my workouts and felt superstrong," she told Prevention magazine. 

Still, given how much her character tripped, fell off, had stuff thrown in her face, fell through ceilings, and slid down flights of stairs, Hatcher sometimes had to pay a price in the form of physical pain and discomfort. "In the episode when I was naked on my porch, I scraped the back of my legs when I fell over into the bushes," she told Metro. While that was minor, Hatcher did get more seriously injured once.

In Season 6, Teri Hatcher's Susan Mayer famously stripped while pole-dancing to make her husband, Mike, jealous, Hello! magazine noted. In doing so, Hatcher showed off her incredible pole-dance skills, even going upside-down. As impressive as the scene was, Hatcher unfortunately didn't come out of it unscathed. Speaking on the "The Late Show with David Letterman," Hatcher explained that the effort cracked two of her ribs. But the problem started two weeks earlier.

Her daughter, Emerson, had wanted an "Into the Woods"-themed birthday party and Hatcher was building the set in her backyard. While up on the ladder arranging the various elements of the set clad in her Ugg boots, she fell off and hit her back against the stage, she told Prevention magazine. She was pretty bruised and sore all around, so she failed to notice that she had hurt her ribs, she told Letterman. "Then two weeks later when I went to go do this pole move, we were shooting it and I went to pull myself upside-down on the pole and my rib actually cracked," she explained.

That didn't deter Hatcher from continuing shooting the episode, which took a whole six hours. Yikes! But Hatcher said that was "very much in my nature." She seemed more traumatized by having to sneeze with broken ribs, which she described in great detail in the interview. "It has been the worst thing because you know the sneeze is coming," she told the audience.

Teri Hatcher's ribs fully healed by March 2010, about four months after she originally hurt herself setting up her daughter's birthday party, but that wasn't the last health issue she had that year. A few months later, she had to undergo surgery to remove ovarian cysts, she told Prevention magazine. "It was a bit scary, but everything is fine. During the recovery, I couldn't lift anything or even vacuum until August," she said. But as she soon as she was healthy enough, she resumed her exercise routine. She had completed a triathlon the previous year and said she wanted to complete another. "I'm going to move on with my life. I've spent about a year dominated by pain," she added.

Now in her 50s, Hatcher continues to exercise frequently, something that helps keep her grounded. "Exercise has become a source of well being not a means to look good naked," she captioned a 2019 Instagram post that included photos of herself in a swimsuit. Her routine includes taking cold showers, going on morning hikes, and meditating, she told the Daily Mail. Hatcher is also conscious of what she puts in her body. "I stay motivated to make good choices, concentrating on eating food that falls into the categories of vegetables, dark leafy greens, fruits, and protein and whole grains," she said. Hatcher is passing her love for exercising onto her daughter, who ran the 2018 New York marathon with her, as People noted.