Oprah Winfrey’s new comments about her diet struggles and investment in Weight Watchers despite a cultural change to “fat acceptance” are hogging the spotlight.
But almost as notable in an 8,000-word New York Times Magazine article about the super-rich icon is the magaine author’s tearful phone chat with Winfrey.
“I nodded into the phone because I didn’t want Oprah to hear me crying,” wrote Taffy Brodesser-Akner. “I wanted to quit dieting, but had come to realize that dieting was all I had. I was completely perplexed by food — food! Stupid food! That’s what this was about!”
Brodesser-Akner, a former L.A. resident who has written for the Los Angeles Times, said she had dieted to keep hope that she could manage her food intake.
“When I didn’t have that hope, I was left with too much worry about pain, about how much my knees hurt now and how much more they would in just a few years,” she said. “I could be enlightened about my body. I could have acceptance. But nobody would tell that to the people who saw me as a target; nobody would tell that to my knees.”
She told Winfrey she couldn’t stop feeling as if she were betraying everyone she knew who was “out there trying to find peace with herself. I couldn’t stop thinking that nothing would change in the world until there was a kind of uprising.”
Oprah went into O mode.
“Oh, my God, Taffy,” the $3 billion woman was quoted was saying. “I have to have a talk with you. I used to say this to my producers all the time. We are never going to win with this show looking back to see what other people are doing on their shows. The only way you win is to keep looking forward for yourself. What’s best for you?”
Brodesser-Akner is a veteran freelancer with a track record of confessing her weaknesses, including obsessive-compulsive disorder and hard-to-control weepiness.
The good news is that Brodesser-Akner, 41, is feeling better about herself now.
“Don’t worry, guys,” she said Wednesday on Twitter. “Someone on the Internet google image searched me and doesn’t think I look that fat in pictures!”
Guys, it’s okay. You can be fat AND mistaken for Tom Hiddleston’s girlfriend. What a world, right?
— Taffy Akner (@taffyakner) August 2, 2017
Don’t worry, guys. Someone on the Internet google image searched me and doesn’t think I look that fat in pictures!
— Taffy Akner (@taffyakner) August 2, 2017
It’s already quite a day in my inbox. Thank you for all your diet recommendations! https://t.co/HbMrerSUtv
— Taffy Akner (@taffyakner) August 2, 2017