Kato, we understand you’re a pretty good card player? I’ve been playing cards since I was a little kid. I grew up in Wisconsin and we’d have Sunday get-togethers with the family and watch the Packers play. Afterwards, there’d always be a poker game, so I was introduced to poker at a really young age and I just loved it.

I went on to play in a poker league in LA, and when I saw what was going on with this poker craze, I said to National Lampoon, ?We?ve got to do strip poker,? So we did.

What have you been doing since the OJ Simpson trial?

I work over at National Lampoon. I have a new TV show coming out in September. It?s called ?An Eye for an Eye?. It?s like a courtroom thing and we have a judgement, but instead of having to pay a fine the judge decides what the accused has to do as a punishment. You get what you give. For example, we had this guy who left his dog in his car so he had to spend a week in the
pound. I?m the host of the show. Think Judge Judy meets Jerry Springer meets Fear Factor.

Strip Poker is running all summer on pay-per-view and after that we?re going to be shooting a load more shows. We got all kinds of girls to match everybody?s tastes, from DDs to A cups (Kato then mutters something about a girl with an A cup in Los Angeles getting handicap parking spaces).

It?s about both. We have poker, which is the best game in the world, and we have beautiful women; it just makes perfect sense. We also have comedy sketches in between. But as far as the poker goes, it?s the real deal. Barbara Enright was the consultant on the show and she was a 1996 bracelet winner.

Barbara does, yes. The girls play serious poker, but if they need chips they have to buy them with their clothes. They have only five items of clothing and each item is worth a certain amount of chips, so if they want to go all-in they have to be nude.

Ingenious! And you shot this at Hedonism II in Jamaica?

Yeh, this is a nudist club in Jamaica. Let?s just say the first few days were the hardest.

Basically, there?s a nude side and a prude side, and we shot on the prude side; but all the nude side came over to watch us film. I stayed on the prude side because I didn?t want to take off my clothes, and because people were doing stuff over there that you wouldn?t want to see.

Does being a big shot celebrity like Kato Kaelin help you find love in these situations?

I hate to kiss and tell, but this is Bluff Magazine. All the girls play poker one on one and there was this girl name Tracy who was pretty special. We?ve met up and played a lot of poker together. (Wistfully) I?m in LA, she?s in New York, but we stay in touch.

I had just done my first Coca Cola commercial. I?ve been an actor my entire life, always pursuing that same goal. I was an actor before, during and after the trial.

They say you?re America?s favorite houseguest. Did you get your own place yet?

Actually, I can afford to live on my own couch these days.

Bluff Magazine.com