Rebel Wilson says her team urged her to stay "the funny fat girl"

The Bridesmaids star claims her management were against her losing weight 

As anyone following Rebel Wilson on Instagram will know, the actor, 41, has been on a significant health and fitness journey over the past couple of years. But according to the Hollywood star, her own team feared the physical transformation would hamper her career. 

In an interview with BBC Breakfast, the Australian actor said: “I got a lot of pushback from my own team actually, here in Hollywood, when I said, ‘OK, I’m going to do this year of health, I feel like I’m really going to physically transform and change my life’”. 

She continued: “And they were like, ‘why? Why would you want to do that?’ Because I was earning millions of dollars being the funny fat girl.”

Rebel also discussed the volume of media attention sparked by her weight loss. “So, is that what a woman has to do in the world, lose weight to get attention?” she said. “It’s fascinating, why are people so obsessed with it? Like, with women in particular about their looks? 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.”

However, the actor explained that her weight loss wasn’t motivated by a desire to conform to beauty ideals. “For me it was much bigger, it was about being the healthiest version of me, so it wasn’t about size or a number or whatever,” she said. “I was still very confident being bigger, and would rock a red carpet. I was probably double, sometimes triple the size of other actresses, but I still felt confident in that.” 

What had concerned her was the link between her eating patterns and emotional health. “I knew deep down inside that some of the emotional eating behaviours I was doing were not healthy,” said Rebel. 

We’re happy to hear she’s in a more contented place. Most women experience changes to their weight over the course of their lives, and Rebel proves that it doesn’t need to impact our self love.