When I got my first film role, no one was more surprised than I was. I did take pleasure in the fact that someone had hired me to star in a real live movie. And I was clear that I wouldn’t have gotten the role if I was skinny. Precious was a role for fat girls only! What a weird world we live in, huh? Lee Daniels said he wanted me to be a star even after Precious; he wanted me to be able to endure the grueling pace of making movies. He immediately signed me up for a gym, hired me a personal trainer, put me in tap-dancing class, and hired a yoga instructor for me. He wanted me to be moving six days a week, and I did. I didn’t complain at all! I was ecstatic that someone was taking charge of my body in this healthy way and, on top of that, paying for it! All I had to do was not eat like an asshole, and that was pretty easy when being a movie star was going to depend on it. I was up every morning at six. I would kind of eat breakfast and then go to the gym to work out with my trainer. Then I’d rehearse with Lee, and then he’d drive me to the production office where Lee’s staff would order me a healthy lunch. I’d do some fittings for clothes, sign some paperwork, have a meeting, and then I’d go to tap-dance class for two or three hours and then home to make myself a healthy dinner, and I did it all again the next day. On the weekends I’d go to yoga. I lost nearly thirty pounds in the first month of this, and for the first time, the only thing I gained was a strong hate for yoga. Fuck yoga yo.
I continued to lose weight as we filmed. When we were done, I stopped the yoga and the tap-dancing lessons. I kept up my good eating habits. I continued going to my trainer, Kris, who was an ex-bouncer and club kid. He was a break-dancer and a karate master. He always knew if I’d skipped breakfast. If I was super catty and mean to him, he understood it meant I was following the meal plan he’d given me and didn’t take offense. He called me Sarcastro because of my sarcastic nature. He and I would work out and talk shit about people who were too dumb to realize how funny we were. No one was more proud of my weight loss than Kris. He helped me to realize how physically strong I was and could be. He taught me the importance of breakfast! (Seriously, I hate breakfast. I spent so many years waiting until I was alone to eat that I don’t even get hungry until around two-ish. On some days, four-ish. My metabolism was as slow as molasses until I started eating breakfast. Now look at me! I’m still fat . . . and rich! Fuck you!) Kris found that I was a strong swimmer, so we would do workouts in pools sometimes, and I loved it. I started walking to the gym and back home afterward. It was a mile each way, so I was really on my grind.
One day Lee called me and asked how working out was going. I told him how great I felt and that I was now sixty pounds down from when he hired me. He was impressed. But then he said, “So, Gab . . . we’re going to have to do reshoots for the film soon. How different do you look from Precious?” I sent him pictures. I looked different. Lee instructed me to stop working out until reshoots were over. The next week he called me, and carefully said, “Precious, I think if you concentrated and maybe ate some cake, it could really help us. You’ve lost too much weight.” This was a sentence I’d never heard directed at me. I immediately started bragging about it instead of paying attention to the literal weight of what was being asked of me. I reversed everything that I’d been doing over the last nine months and tried to put weight back on. I didn’t actually gain enough by the time I had to shoot again. In fact, it’s pretty noticeable in the film. There’s a fight scene where I look big, and then in the next scene I’m noticeably smaller and have darker skin (I had a tan from walking to the gym every day). In the next scene, I’m bigger and lighter again. Even without regaining all the weight, I did completely screw up all my progress. I fell back into eating like an asshole. Skipping breakfast for chicken wings and french fries in the afternoon, and eating cake all the time because I “deserved it.”
People have a lot of weird misconceptions about bigger people. I already knew that, but I knew it for sure when I started traveling to film festivals. I can’t tell you how many times I had to hear, “I have to admit something. I thought that fat people were stupid, I thought they were lazy, and I thought they smelled bad. But meeting you, I realize that you’re a normal person like me. And you smell really good and you’re so smart!” What the fuck, right? People not only thought it, but they thought it was appropriate to mention it to me. Interviewers saw fit to ask me if I ever thought about losing weight. As if 1) it hasn’t been on my mind every waking moment of my entire life, and as if 2) it’s any of their business.
Precious and The Blind Side were released the same year. Both were nominated for Oscars for best film and both featured bigger people than we are used to seeing star in films. One was me, a woman (duh), and the other a man, Quinton Aaron. Truthfully, we were probably very near the same weight. He is tall and handsome, and part of me thought (thinks) we could be good friends. But back then I made the mistake of googling the comments about myself and comparing them to the comments section of Quinton’s IMDb page. I was called a “Fat Fuck,” “Fat Bitch,” “Whale,” “Gorilla,” “Elephant.” I was “ugly,” “uglier,” and, finally, “the ugliest.” I was a “planet-sized bitch,” “the BP oil spill,” “dark as midnight,” and don’t even get me started on the “fat nigger” comments. Some people were “truly just concerned about” my weight. I was “a heart attack waiting to happen.” People were predicting that I would “die any minute” and “won’t make it to her 30th birthday.” A lot of people were concerned that I was “promoting unhealthy eating habits.” Funny, I could’ve sworn I was promoting a movie. Quinton was described as “ridiculously handsome” and a “big teddy bear with beautiful brown puppy dog eyes.” I was pissed! I was so hurt that when I met him I was mean to him. I had no choice! Junior high school rules took over! He told me that he cried while watching Precious, and I replied, “Oh. Like a pussy?” He was really sweet and pleased to meet me so I immediately felt bad about saying something rude. So I only said like two more mean things. He remained sweet and humble. I’m not even sure he realized I was shading the shit out of him. He was really nice. And handsome. Damn those puppy dog eyes. Whenever I see him now, I try not to dwell over how differently we’re received by the public. It’s not his fault. Besides, that other shit is just business. The business of being different and being a woman at the same time. Don’t even get me started on the many times I’ve been questioned about where I get my confidence.
I sometimes get so mad at myself. Mad at my body. I call it “my personal 9/11” when I am feeling really down. My body sometimes feels like a tragedy. But I’m trying very hard to change my mind about that. This is my body. It’s going to be with me forever. For all the ways it’s failed me, it’s come through for me a million times more. I’ll never be skinny and don’t really want to be. I want to be smaller and I want to be healthier. My body will get me there. Every day I have to remind myself to be good to my body and allow it to be good to me. I’m also trying to stop my urge to make the joke first. I know my body is not funny. I choose me and my body over my fear of someone making a joke of it.