Usually weight loss is celebrated as a positive, but actress Rebel Wilson has a different tale to tell.
The “Pitch Perfect” alum recently opened up about how her team reacted to her plans for getting healthy, and she claims they were less than thrilled at the prospect.
“I got a lot of pushback from my own team actually, here in Hollywood, when I said ‘Okay, I’m going to do this year of health, I feel like I’m really gonna physically transform and change my life,’ ” Wilson said during an interview with BBC.
“And they were like, ‘Why? Why would you wanna do that?’ Because I was earning millions of dollars being the funny fat girl and being that person,” she continued.
Wilson stunned fans last year with her 80-pound weight loss. The actress says she embarked on a “year of health.” While Wilson said she was always confident with herself, she did admit to changing some of her less-than-healthy habits.
“Like I did not need a tub of ice cream every night,” the Aussie explained of her methods. “That was me kind of numbing emotions using food, which wasn’t the healthiest thing. I think it was dealing with not being a natural performer, and having to perform every day. And that pressure and internal stress to be able to perform like that.”
Wilson went on to describe feeling “invisible” before losing weight and later gave her take on the modern standard of beauty.
“It’s fascinating. Why are people so obsessed with women, in particular, about their looks?” she said. “I know what it’s like to be a woman who is essentially invisible to most people because of not being seen as traditionally beautiful or whatever. It’s crazy to try to fit that. It’s just better to be the healthiest version.”’
But even with this positive outlook, Wilson is seeing some pushback both from her team and from members of the body positivity community who don’t believe weight loss should be equated to better health benefits.
She said she embarked on the journey partly because of struggles with infertility. “To all the women out there struggling with fertility, I feel ya,” the actress shared on Instagram. “The universe works in mysterious ways and sometimes it all doesn’t make sense … but I hope there’s light about to shine through all the dark clouds.”
In the interview, she spoke of trying to lose weight at first to help improve egg quality. “It wasn’t even really myself; it was more thinking of a future mini-me, really,” she quipped.
While the actress is proud of her success, she admits to faltering at times as well. “I’m not perfect, like, I still emotionally eat at times, there’s stressful things that still go on in my life and in my work that can be high pressure … but I’m not perfect. I’ve [just] learned to manage things.”