Melissa McCarthy opened up about being called “grotesque” and “sloppy” during a press conference.
The actress recalled an experience with an interviewer, where he negatively commented on her appearance on front of a room full of roughly a hundred other members of the press.
“I always feel like those characters become so real and personal. I really get protective. Years ago I was at a press conference for either The Heat or Tammy, and somebody from a very big organisation kept asking me, ‘Why do you always feel the need to be so grotesque?'” she told InStyle.
“It was a huge interview with maybe 100 people in the room, and he was sneering. I said, ‘What are we talking about? I can’t answer your question because I don’t understand it.'”
“He goes, ‘You look sloppy, you’re not wearing any makeup, your hair is not done, you’re yelling at people.’ I was like, ‘OK, so have you ever asked this of a guy? I’m playing a character. You need to get out more if you don’t think there are real women like that.'”
“He goes, ‘Oh, fine, I’m aggressive, call it whatever you want. If you don’t want to answer the questions, you shouldn’t come to the panel.’ I was like, ‘I really want to answer your questions. I’m sorry I didn’t wear makeup in a part. I’m sorry I didn’t look pleasant for you. But I also don’t think you should be here writing about movies.'”
The actress went on to describe another interview in which she was fat-shamed by the interviewer, who later lost his job over another matter.
“I do remember another interview I did for Bridesmaids with somebody who later lost his job for a conversation he had on a bus with someone else. I won’t mention names, but just think about it. ”
“He kept asking, ‘Are you shocked that you actually work in this business at your tremendous size?’ He was like, ‘Oh, your tremendous size, you can actually work?’ I just remember all the blood drained out of me.”
“I thought, ‘With my tremendous size, I could tackle you so quickly.’ There were two cameras on him, and one was on me, and he went back to that question three or four times, and I just kept talking about the script or how fun Paul Feig was. He was looking around like, ‘She’s crazy,'” Melissa continued.
“When we left, their producer was horrified and said, ‘We’ll never play what he said. I’m so sorry.’ But it happens all the time, to the point where it’s fascinating because they don’t do it to men.”
