Yahoo Lifestyle Kate Winslet Cries as She Recalls Confronting Press Over ‘Horrific’ Body Shaming and ‘Harassment’; She ‘Let Them Have It’ and Said: ‘I Hope This Haunts You’
Kate Winslet fought through tears during an interview with “60 Minutes” while remembering a time when she stood up to the press for bullying her over her weight following the success of “Titanic.” The Oscar winner has been vocal in the past about the body shaming she endured after James Cameron’s 1997 blockbuster turned her into a global movie star.
During her “60 Minutes” interview, a clip from “E!” was played in which the on-air host said Winslet looked “a little melted and poured into” a dress she wore during “Titanic’s” awards season run. The host added that Winslet “needed two sizes larger and she’d be ok.”
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“It’s absolutely appalling,” Winslet then said about how the press bullied her over her weight at the time. “What kind of a person must they be to do something like that to a young actress who’s just trying to figure it out?”
When asked if she’d ever confronted the press for bullying her, Winslet responded: “I did get face to face. I let them have it. I said, ‘I hope this haunts you’.”
“It was a great moment,” Winslet continued as she fought back tears. “It was a great moment because it wasn’t just for me, it was for all those people who were subjected to that level of harassment. It was horrific. It was really bad.”
Winslet revealed in an interview with The Sunday Times in 2022 that she was told to settle for “fat girl” parts when she was a young performer in acting school. The body shaming only got worse after “Titanic.” Winslet said on the “Happy Sad Confused” podcast that “Titanic” viewers used the film’s ending to mock her weight by saying Rose was too fat for Leonardo DiCaprio’s Jack to also survive the freezing Atlantic waters on the floating door.
“Apparently I was too fat,” Winslet said. “Why were they so mean to me? They were so mean. I wasn’t even fucking fat.”
“I’m a young woman, my body is changing, I’m figuring it out, I’m deeply insecure, I’m terrified, don’t make this any harder than it already is,” she continued. “That’s bullying, you know, and actually borderline abusive, I would say.”
Winslet told Variety earlier this year that “Titanic” body shaming “went on for years.” Watch her full interview on “60 Minutes” in the video below.
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