Kate Winslet gets emotional recalling attacks over her weight in “Titanic”:“ ”'It was absolutely appalling'

"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?"

Kate Winslet has not forgotten the sting of being body shamed throughout the early years of her career.

While reflecting on her rise to fame with 60 Minutes, the Oscar-winning actress recalled the tabloid coverage that followed her in the wake of Titanic's success — much of which saw reporters scrutinizing her body.

"It was absolutely appalling," Winslet said, after the show played an old clip of commentators discussing her dress size. "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?"

Asked whether she ever had an opportunity to confront one of the body-shaming reporters, Winslet said, "I did get face-to-face. I let them have it. I said 'I hope this haunts you.'" Pausing, the Lee actress became emotional, tearing up as she thought back to the encounter.

She continued, "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."

Related: Leonardo DiCaprio reunites with Titanic costar Kate Winslet: 'One of the great talents of my generation'

Winslet was 22 and just establishing herself in Hollywood when she landed the role of Rose DeWitt Bukater, opposite Leonardo DiCaprio's Jack Dawson. Now, at 49, the actress has developed thick skin and isn't afraid to push back in the face of an unfair double standard. To this day, Winslet noted that she still receives comments about how her body appears in new projects.

"People say, 'Oh, you were so brave for this role. You didn’t wear any makeup. You had wrinkles,'" she recalled. "Do we say to the men, 'Oh, you were so brave for this role. You grew a beard?' No. We don’t."

She added, "It’s not brave. It’s playing the part.”

Related: Chrissy Metz says exec asked if This Is Us role was meant for plus-size actress 'like Kate Winslet'

The actress, who is next set to portray Vogue model–turned–war correspondent Elizabeth "Lee" Miller in Lee, said she even got weight comments while filming the upcoming movie.

"There's a bit where Lee's sitting on a bench in a bikini," Winslet previously told Harper's Bazaar UK, "and one of the crew came up between takes and said: 'You might want to sit up straighter.' So you can't see my belly rolls? Not on your life!"

She added that she has zero concerns about looking less-than-perfect in front of cameras. "The opposite," she said. "I take pride in it because it is my life on my face, and that matters. It wouldn't occur to me to cover that up."

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Despite all the negative comments, Winslet has maintained that the industry — and the way people talk about women's bodies — has started to change for the better. Back in 2021, she credited the #MeToo movement and women "feeling an inherent sense of connection with each other" for the shift in that attitude. While chatting with The Guardian, she said she observed the changes herself, while revising newspaper articles written about her in the late 1990s, when she was just 19 years old.

"It was almost laughable how shocking, how critical, how straight-up cruel tabloid journalists were to me," she said. " They would comment on my size, they'd estimate what I weighed, they'd print the supposed diet I was on. It was critical and horrible and so upsetting to read. But… it also made me feel so… so moved. By how different it is now."

You can watch Winslet reflect on her career in the 60 Minutes interview above.