Couch Potato: Dirty Jobs' Mike Rowe

I like my men dirty. So I couldn’t resist having Mike Rowe, star of Discovery Channel’s Dirty Jobs, stop by the office. The show is celebrating its 150th show tonight by hosting a brown-tie gala event for some of its most memorable guests. “Our guests are being chaffuered in on garbage trucks and we’ve rolled out the nice brown carpet,” Mike shared. “It’s everything a celebrity would hate, and secretly we love it.”

Mike’s daily descent into the country’s grittiest gigs has made him some A-list fans, including Luke Perry and Winona Ryder. “A makeup artist I was doing a shoot with had worked with Winona the day before and told me that she had made some dirty job suggestions for me,” Mike said. Lifestyle expert Sandra Lee swears that Mike is the sexiest man on TV. “I’ve been covered in a lot of poo from a lot of species, including ours,” Mike laughed, adding that stepping into jobs he knows little about, “makes me vulnerable, and I don’t try and hide it. It may be that.”

Sitting next to the 6’ ft. host with the bellowing baritone voice, I have to say Mike does clean up nicely. His secret? “Water as hot as you can stand it. Scrub with lava soap till its pink and when it hurts, do a little more.” He’s also got great family values, dedicating his series his to his dad and grandfather, men who worked with their hands on a daily basis. “They fished, farmed and crawled through rivers of stinky stuff,” said the former opera singer and actor, who sheepishly admitted that he initially got into performing because “I didn’t want to do the kind of jobs my grandfather and father had… Now I’m doing the same things they used to do. So I’m up to my neck in irony.”

That’s better than a lot of other things Mike’s been up to his neck in! Dirty Jobs, 150th anniversary, airs Tuesday, Oct. 23 at 9 p.m. on Discovery.