Chrissy Metz is speaking out on the”abuse” she received over her weight from her stepfather, friends, and even random people before striking TV fame.
She said her stepfather “would weigh me in the kitchen or threaten to lock the cupboards, and I’m like, ‘I don’t think you get it,’” the 44-year-old told host Jamie Kern Lima on the Tuesday, October 22 episode of the Jamie Kern Lima Podcast.
“I think there’s so much more awareness now around food, food issues, food behavior … we educate people, the fear goes away. And maybe he was just fearful. I don’t really know,” says the This Is Us star. “But, yeah, I mean, [it was] definitely mental, physical, emotional abuse for sure.”
Metz grew up in Gainesville, Florida as the middle child of five. She also discussed how hearing endless comments about her figure added up over the years: “The emotional stuff … they’re like little nicks, little cuts, and eventually you bleed out. It is painful.”
“Why does my weight equate my worthiness?” she asked. “And as a 12-year-old kid, it’s like, how do you reconcile that in your mind?”
She also shared that the peak of her struggles with acceptance was in her adolescence: “You look like none of your other friends and you can’t fit into any of the cute Wet Seal clothes that they can fit into. You’re like, ‘Oh, let me borrow your necklace.’ Also all the boys liked my friends — and I always felt like I was setting my friends up with cute boys.”
Now, Metz is healing, but the process isn’t easy. “I think I’m trying to heal those wounds slowly but surely. And it’s not easy … the root of it is, ‘I’m unworthy.’ Metz added: “There’s so much stigma about weight, and there still is for a myriad of reasons, but I think there’s this idea that like, ‘Oh, you can’t put the food down’ or ‘You’re lazy.’”
“Beautiful models are on a pedestal, even though they’re very unhealthy as well. They’re not taking care of their bodies. But when you’re overweight, it’s like a whole other thing. It’s so bizarre,” Metz continued.
The actor detailed specific interactions with strangers, who would go as far as to “sigh, or wouldn’t look at me or wouldn’t engage” when she sat next to them on an airplane.
“Before the show, I could go on an airplane and someone could not want to sit next to me if they were too squished or they were going to be like, ’Oh, gosh, here comes a big girl that I have to sit next to.’ But because now I’m on a TV show, they don’t care. Or they’re like, ‘Oh, well, you’re famous.’”
“It was always like, they’re going to be bothered that I’m sitting next to them, or they wouldn’t look at me twice or they would not engage. And then when I became, let’s put it in air quotes, famous, then they want to have a conversation or they were more apt to want to sit next to me.”
“It’s still something that my friends and I talk about because what does it really even mean? What could I provide to them or what insight could I share with them? I don’t know. Do they feel cooler sitting next to someone who’s famous? I don’t know.”
“I don’t understand it,” Metz said. “That kind of behavior … it makes you not want to trust people.”
Since the iconic NBC series ended in 2022, Metz has gone on to star in the horror film A Creature Was Stirring (2023) as the lead role.