Kate Winslet is completely done with Titanic body-shaming: ‘Don’t you dare treat me like this’
Kate Winslet feels she was unfairly treated by tabloid journalists at the time Titanic was released. (Getty/John Phillips)
Kate Winslet has recalled the trauma of being body-shamed by the media in the wake of the release of Titanic.
Speaking about her experience on the Happy Sad Confused podcast ahead of the film’s 25th anniversary, Winslet opened up about the vicious treatment she received early in her career after starring in James Cameron’s hit 1997 blockbuster.
“Apparently, I was too fat,” Winslet told host Josh Horowitz, referring to the persisting discourse around why Leonardo DiCaprio’s Jack couldn’t fit on that door and save himself at the end of the film.
“Isn’t that awful? Why were they so mean to me? They were so mean. I wasn’t even f—ing fat.”
Reflecting on the treatment she received when she was just 22 years old at the time of the box office hit, the actress said that if she could “turn back the clock”, she would have “used her voice in an entirely different way”.
“I would have said to journalists, I would have responded, I would have said, ‘Don’t you dare treat me like this. I’m a young woman, my body is changing, I’m figuring it out, I’m deeply insecure, I’m terrified, don’t make this any harder than it already is.’ That’s bullying, you know, and actually borderline abusive, I would say.”
Winslet, who earned an Academy Award nomination for her role as Rose, had previously spoken to The Guardian about the sexist treatment she received post-Titanic at the hands of the media, recalling how journalists would continually run stories scrutinising her appearance.
“They would comment on my size, they’d estimate what I weighed, they’d print the supposed diet I was on,” she explained. “It was critical and horrible and so upsetting to read.”
“And it was almost laughable how shocking, how critical, how straight-up cruel tabloid journalists were to me. I was still figuring out who the hell I bloody well was!”
During her podcast appearance, Winslet also jokingly addressed the age-old conundrum: could Jack have fitted on that door, saving his own life as well as Rose’s?
“You just have to make a joke of it, don’t you? I don’t f—ing know. The answer is, I don’t f—ing know,” she said, before confirming everyone’s suspicions.
“I have to be honest, I actually don’t believe that we would have survived if we had both gotten on that door. I think that he could have fit, but it would have tipped … and it would not have been a sustainable idea.”
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