Chrissy Metz Wants People to Stop Asking Her if She's Having Weight-Loss Surgery
At a Hollywood Reporter roundtable earlier this year, Chrissy Metz said she’d eventually love to play a character whose storyline wasn’t centered around weight. Her character on This Is Us (Kate Pearson) is three-dimensional and nuanced, yes, but the bulk of her dialogue is about her body insecurities and desire to shed pounds. For some reason, we’re still not at a place where a plus-size character can simply exist without their weight being a thing.
This carries over into real life, too. If you go on YouTube and watch a few of Metz’s interviews, you’ll notice a trend: People always ask her about her weight. Without fail. Metz is a good sport about these questions: She answers them warmly and honestly, but it’s still frustrating she has to address it. (In some interviews, it feels like she’s even apologizing for it, which is problematic and wrong on so many levels.)
This line of questioning also infiltrates her personal life, off-camera. The actress told the Today show on Tuesday that the question she wishes people would stop asking her is whether or not she’s having weight loss surgery.
“[They ask], ‘Are you gonna be doing gastric bypass?'” Metz said. “What? Some people do feel like they’re my doctors and they have tried to diagnose me on the Internets, so that’s weird. ‘Cause like, I’m good. I’m good, but thanks. I’m good.”
Watch Metz’s interview for yourself, below:
This is a good time to remind everyone that you cannot determine a person’s health status just by looking at them. Plus-size people are routinely subjected to unfair and incorrect criticisms based solely on their appearance, and that needs to stop. We’re more than just our bodies, people.
Related Stories:
Chrissy Metz Says It’s in Her Contract to Lose Weight for This Is Us