This post contains discussion of eating disorders and body image issues.
If you’re of a certain age — or, if you’re just a really hardcore TV head — you probably know all about Ally McBeal, the hit dramedy that aired for five seasons from 1997 to 2002.
Perhaps you even caught the cast’s onstage reunion at the 2023 Emmys just a few weeks ago.
So, while Ally McBeal was a big cultural thing, there was a lot of media speculation about Calista’s body, which was — obviously — really fucked up.
In a recent interview with the New York Times, Calista addressed a specific rumor from that time: That she was struggling with anorexia nervosa, which Johns Hopkins Medicine describes as “an eating disorder that causes a severe and strong fear of gaining weight.”
“I loved working on Ally McBeal, and it just made it sour,” she said while discussing the rumors. “I was very sleep-deprived and I was depressed about it. I did think that it was going to ruin my career.”
“I didn’t think anybody would ever hire me again, because they would just assume I had anorexia, and that would be the end of that.”
Calista also said that the errant speculation meant that she “had days where I was really hurt and embarrassed and infuriated. I was lucky that I had to work.”
“I just put my head down. I always felt like, ‘Calista, you’re a good person, you’re not mean to anybody,’ and I’m confident in that.”
Calista also suggested that such speculation wouldn’t take place today, and was a result of past attitudes toward body image.
“They call it body-shaming now,” she said. “I haven’t thought about it in a long time, but it’s really not OK to accuse someone of having a disease that a lot of people struggle with.”
You can read the entire interview here.
