Photo:John Russo for Haute Living
John Russo for Haute Living
Kristin Davisis getting candid about the impact body shaming in Hollywood had on her over the years.
In her cover story forHaute Living, theAnd Just Like That…star, 58, discussed feeling out of place in the industry and the “scars” she has from years of criticism.
“I really started working at age 30 when I got the job onMelrose Place, and it was literally a place of stick-skinny women with blond hair and blue eyes, and I felt very much like, ‘What am I doing here?’It was stressful,” she said, explaining the toll it took on her self confidence, especially while later portrayingSex and the City’s Charlotte York.
“All of the body shaming I’ve been subjected to for the past 25 years, pretty much until recently, [is the only bad thing about playing Charlotte],” she said.
“[Those magazines] would [write things] like ‘Kristin’s hips are bigger than her shoulders,’ and I’m like, ‘But they’re not!’ And then I’m like, ‘Well, who cares? What if they are?’But I mean, it’s just ongoing,” Davis told the outlet, noting that she was often referred to as “pear-shaped” in the tabloids while costarSarah Jessica Parkerwas called “skinny.”
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“[The cashier] goes, ‘You can’t eat those,’ and she kind of points at my hips. I was so sad,” she said. “I was like, ‘The bodega lady will not sell me M&M’s. What the heck?’ I cried all the way home. I walked and cried, walked and cried.”
“For me, it is really hard to hear things like that, and then be told, ‘Oh, everyone should love their bodies,’” Davis explained. “When you’ve had decades of this coming at you, it’s really hard to just be like, ‘Yes, I’m great, I’m good. I love my body.’ I’m working on it obviously, and now I do care less, thank God.”
“But also, part of the reason I care less is because when you get older, the expectations are less, in a way. Everyone wants to dissect your face, right? Then your body isn’t the feature attraction. I’m certainly not immune to it all. You try not to look at it, but it permeates things,” she continued. “I’ve definitely cried. I’ve definitely had what you would call ‘disordered eating’ over the years, but I’m good now. I’ve been working on myself. And that is one thing you learn from doing it for a long time: you go, ‘Here I am! This is me!’That does come with time. And it’s true: here I am, and I am not perfect. I shouldn’t have to say that, but I’m happy to.”
source: people.com
