I have been called a hippo and an elephant in life – Gabourey Sidibe

Gabourey Sidibe has had enough.

The 33-year-old actress says she’s sick of scriptwriters constantly making reference to her weight, and says people aren’t that obsessed by it in real life.
‘As a woman in a different body, I get a lot of scripts and offers where someone has to make mention of my body immediately,’ she revealed during a panel discussion at the SXSW Festival on Saturday.

‘Someone wrote a script with me in mind and the first time someone other than my character was talking about my character they say “this hippo” or “this elephant,”‘ she confessed. ‘And I’m like, “Are you serious? You wrote something for me and you’re calling me a hippo and all of the animals.”‘

‘This is my body. This has been my body my entire life and in my life my friends and my colleagues are not constantly talking about my body. But in most of my roles somebody has to make mention of it.

But she says the turning point was being diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes last year.

‘I just didn’t want to worry,’ she told People last week. ‘I truly didn’t want to worry about all the effects that go along with diabetes. I genuinely [would] worry all the time about losing my toes.’

And after years of battling self-esteem issues, Gabourey says the surgery has given her a newfound confidence.



-dailymail