Josh Radnor shared a video on Instagram of a speech he gave at one of his recent concerts about his How I Met Your Mother character, Ted Mosby
He said he needs “public atonement” for a Ted speech in which he monologues about love, but Radnor said, “That is called codependency, stalking. That’s not at all love”
Radnor said fans often reach out to him about the impact of the speech, which was part of HIMYM’s final season
Ted Mosby’s legacy is long-lasting — and not always easy to deal with.
On Saturday, May 10, Josh Radnor — who played Ted Mosby for nine seasons on How I Met Your Mother — shared a video on his Instagram Story that a fan took of his speech at one of his concerts. A guitarist and songwriter, Radnor, 50, was performing to a sold-out crowd at Space in Evanston, Ill.
In the video, Radnor acknowledged that a lot of his fans come to his concerts because of HIMYM, which ran from 2005 to 2014. “I just hope you leave here as a fan of my music,” he said, before mentioning there was a specific scene he wanted to talk to the crowd about.
“It’s in a later season, where Ted is on a bridge with, I think her name was Jeanette, [played by] Abby Elliott,” he said, referencing a moment from season 9, episode 17, titled “Sunrise.” “So he has this whole monologue about love, and he says, you know, ‘Love is when you love someone so much, and you won’t give up no matter what, and no matter if the universe won’t cooperate.’ I don’t remember what it was, but, ’If you love someone, you never stop. You never, ever, ever stop.’ ”
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Cobie Smulders as Robin (left) and Josh Radnor as Ted on ‘How I Met Your Mother’ in 2006
“And I have so many people write me and stop being on the street and say, ’That speech taught me everything about love,’ ” Radnor said. “And I say to them, ‘That is Ted at his craziest!’ That is called codependency, stalking. That’s not at all love.”
“They will say, ‘I know this woman’s my Robin, even though she said she wants nothing to do with me. I know she’s by Robin.’ I was like, ‘Leave that poor girl alone. Move on with your life,’ ” he said. “So I feel that I have to perform some public atonement for confusing [fans].” He then played his song “You Can Sleep Alone Tonight,” about thinking about trying to rekindle something with an ex, but deciding not to.
In the HIMYM episode Radnor referenced, flashbacks show Ted going to great lengths to locate a locket that Robin (Cobie Smulders) wants to use as her something old as she marries Barney (Neil Patrick Harris). In the scene featuring the speech, Ted finds out Jeanette has it, and when she tells him he’s “crazy” for still being obsessed with Robin, he tells her, “Actually, there is a word for that. It’s love. I’m in love with her, okay? If you’re looking for the word that means caring about someone beyond all rationality and wanting them to have everything they want no matter how much it destroys you, its love!” She ultimately drops the locket in some water below them, and in a later episode, viewers learn he jumped in to get it back.
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Josh Radnor (left) and Cobie Smulder in ‘How I Met Your Mother’ season 9, looking for Robin’s lost locket
However, in the present day, the plot is about how Ted has to let go of his obsession with Robin so they both can be happy. And after she marries Barney, he finally meets the titular “mother” — Cristin Milioti’s Tracy. The message is, perhaps, a little muddled for fans since, at the very end of the show, we learn Tracy has died and Ted’s kids give their blessing for him to give a romance with a now-divorced Robin a shot.
As for the speech itself, Radnor is right: the YouTube video of the clip is filled with positive comments from people praising Ted and sharing that it changed their perspective on romance.
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This isn’t the first time Radnor, who co-hosts the HIMYM recap podcast How We Made Your Mother, has combined his most famous role and his passion for music. TikToker Jason Kimmel went viral with his song “The Actor” — specifically when he sings, “And she told me I remind her of Ted Mosby / I said, ‘Honestly I’m flattered’ / She said, ‘Don’t be’ / I said, ‘Really no, I’m flattered, Ted’s annoying but I like Josh Radnor’ / She said, ‘Who?’ I said, ‘The actor.’ ”
Radnor appeared in a February TikTok singing the song with Kimmel, and Kimmel recently shared a video of Radnor performing the song — with lyrics about Harris’ Barney instead of him and Ted — at one of his shows.
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