Kate Winslet Forced to Defend Her Weight (Again) 25 Years After ‘Titanic’: “I Wasn’t Even F***ing Fat”

Kate Winslet has been undeniably outspoken against body shamers, particularly those who criticized her physique in her early twenties. After yet another interview where the Oscar-winning actress has had to defend her weight in Titanic, we can’t help but wonder: When will people stop fixating on this?

Winslet most recently opened up about her thoughts on trolls saying Jack (Leonardo DiCaprio) died of hypothermia in the 1997 romance film because her character’s weight wouldn’t allow him to float on the door alongside her — which, for the record, was disputed in a scientific study conducted by none other than director James Cameron.

“Apparently, I was too fat,” Winslet said during a recent interview on the Happy Sad Confused podcast. “Why were they so mean to me? They were so mean. I wasn’t even fucking fat.”

She went on to say that she would have told journalists, “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.”

However, this is hardly the first time she’s had to address the body shamers. Earlier this month, she said her agent would get asked, “How’s her weight?” and added that she now cares more “about being that actor who moves their face and has a body that jiggles.”

Meanwhile, in a 2021 interview with The Guardian, Winslet said, “It was almost laughable how shocking, how critical, how straight-up cruel tabloid journalists were to me.”

She continued, “I was still figuring out who the hell I bloody well was! They would comment on my size, they’d estimate what I weighed, they’d print the supposed diet I was on. It was critical and horrible and so upsetting to read.”

Even earlier than both of those instances, the star revealed the inspiring support she received from co-star and longtime friend DiCaprio in a 2004 interview on The Oprah Winfrey Show. He had told her that her body “shape” was “important” because “there’s so many skinny girls out there who think that to be successful and to be beautiful and therefore to be loved and respected, it means you have to be thin,” Winslet recalled.

Clearly, Winslet is unbothered by her weight — as she should be. So can 2023 be the year we stop making her talk about it?

Anyway, Titanic wouldn’t be half as memorable if Jack didn’t die. But that’s a conversation for another day.