Barbra Streisand Addresses Melissa McCarthy Ozempic Comment: ‘The World Is Reading’
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Barbra Streisand is walking back on her recent comment shared via Melissa McCarthy’s Instagram — kind of.
“OMG — I went on Instagram to see the photos we’d posted of the beautiful flowers I’d received for my birthday!” Streisand, 82, shared via Instagram Stories on Tuesday, April 30. “Below them was a photo of my friend Melissa McCarthy who I sang with on my Encore album. She looked fantastic! I just wanted to pay her a compliment. I forgot the world is reading.”
Her post came hours after Streisand made headlines for writing, then quickly deleting, a comment on McCarthy’s recent Instagram photo from the Center Theatre Group gala with Hairspray director Adam Shankman.
“Pastels only to honor the incredible @matthewbourne13 at the @ctgla gala last night with this fella @adamshankman !!” she captioned the post, uploaded Monday, April 29. “Thiiiiis much closer to my dream of dancing on stage 💃🏻💚🩷.”
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Streisand saw the image, responding: “Give him my regards did you take Ozempic?”
While the comment was taken down as fast as it was posted, eagle-eyed fans were quick to screenshot the reply and share it online. Some commenters theorized that Streisand meant to send McCarthy a direct message instead.
Ozempic and Wegovy, along with other semaglutides, have become popular as weight loss drugs. (Semaglutides are traditionally prescribed for adults struggling with high blood pressure or type 2 diabetes or weight-related conditions.)
McCarthy has never spoken publicly about the weight-loss drug, which has become popular in Hollywood. However, she has spoken publicly about how she’s been perceived because of her looks. While on the press tour for 2011’s Bridesmaids, McCarthy recalled one journalist harping over her weight.
“He kept asking, ‘Are you shocked that you actually work in this business at your tremendous size?’” McCarthy told InStyle during a 2019 interview. “He was like, ‘Oh, your tremendous size, you can actually work?’ I just remember all the blood drained out of me. I thought, ‘With my tremendous size, I could tackle you so quickly.’ … When we left, their producer was horrified and said, ‘We’ll never play what he said. I’m so sorry.’ But it happens all the time, to the point where it’s fascinating because they don’t do it to men.”
Elsewhere in the interview, she said “it happens all the time” to women in the industry. “It’s fascinating because they don’t do it to men," she continued.
