Star Jones: "I'm Going To Tell You Something Sometime"
I feel all nostalgic now; there’s news about Star Jones! Well, sort of. On a press tour for her new show, she evaded questions about her weight loss, then promised to explain all:
“I know that people are curious,” Jones admitted. “I’ve changed completely from the way I looked when I first started in television and the way I look now. I think it does a service to the audience to [not] really explain. I think in the coming months, I will have explained (the change). By the time the show goes on the air, no one will have to ask those questions again.”
After more questioning, she ultimately admitted that she wrote an article for Glamour. My money is firmly in the square of weight-loss surgery, and I’m glad she’s finally spilling, because this cone of silence is ridiculous. Let’s keep our eyes peeled on upcoming issues of Glamour, shall we? Oh, I can’t wait!
Via my new favorite television blog, What’s Alan Watching?
Posted by mo pie
Filed under: Celebrities, Magazines, Star Jones
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I saw pictures a bunch of months ago in Us Weekly, I think it was? She was in a bikini, and I completely recognized on her belly the four small laproscopic scars that I have on my stomach, which for me turn out to be the result of weight loss surgery. My money’s on gastric bypass, too.
Ok, it’s been pretty obvious that she’s had weight loss surgery despite her silence on the issue. But when she finally does admit it, what difference does it make???
Whether or not she goes on a diet, works out, or staples her stomach to the size of a peanut, the only important thing to me is that she took a step to becoming a much healthier person! I’m sick of this high handed judgment many people (not directed towards anyone in particular) seem to have in regards to people who have had weight loss surgery. It’s a very brave thing to do, taking any kind of step to lose weight – I know that we’d all like to believe that every woman should be satisfied and proud of her body, but that is NEVER going to happen as long as the media, men and models exist.
So I’m glad that Star Jones is finally going to admit the truth, but can we all move on and focus on the more than 129 million Americans who are still obese (myself included) and start talking AND doing something about it!
What is a “cone of silence?”
WLS is not a step toward becoming a healthier person. It is a step toward possible nutritional deficiences, complications from the surgery, and a definite possibility that it will not work, at all. Been there done that, and refuse to go back (my stapling came undone from all the vomiting when I tried to go back to eating regular food instead of the pureed pap I ate when I first came home after the WLS).
What is a step toward becoming a healthier person is eating a balanced diet (whatever that means for each individual), and getting what exercise you can handle. If your blood sugar numbers, cholesterol numbers, blood pressure, etc are good, then the number on the scale doesn’t mean a whole hell of a lot in terms of how healthy a person is.
People are free to choose weight loss surgery and I am not going to judge anyone for the decisions they make about their own bodies, but you are conflating two issues here… you’re claiming, #1, (without any knowledge of Star’s personal medical history) that she took a step to becoming a “much healthier person,” and #2, that she is brave for losing weight because the media, men, and models pressure all of us to hate our bodies so we might as well give in and go along with it. To me this just goes to show once again that it’s not all about health. Again, not knocking Star for getting WLS if that’s what she did, it’s just that it’s disingenuous to pretend that the choice to do so is always made 100% from a “good” or “healthful” place or, perhaps more to the point, I feel it’s good to point out that there are issues of feminism, religion, morality, etc. etc. that play into our attitudes about fat and it can be beneficial to keep that kind of thing in mind in the general discussion about WLS. And then of course it’s major surgery and encompasses the risk that goes with that. It’s not just “you will without question be healthier so yay, go for it!”. I think the jury is out on how WLS affects people’s health in the long run, and in any case it’s going to vary widely from person to person; it’s a complicated thing. Just my opinion.
Sorry, that last comment was in response to Michelle, not vesta44 and I should have clarified that.
I’m with vesta44 on the issue of WLS being a step towards being healthier. If anything I’ve read reports of WLS patients suffering from a number of side effects and even some dying.
Anyhow…I never liked Star Jones even when she was a fat girl and I still don’t like her now. If she talks then that’s good for her because I never understood the whole “Oh, I’m not telling you how I lost weight” thing.
I’m willing to bet that she doesn’t come clean about anything at all.
Star Jones I have no issues with. Nobody’s saying “hey Star Jones lost weight, what’s wrong with you!.”
And actually I’m not 100% sure it was WLS. Look at this video.
By the end of it I didn’t care how she lost weight. What I want to know is: WHY CAN’T SHE BREATHE?
Has she always been like that? Because I never paid attention to her before, but she sound like somebody with one foot in the grave. And I’m guessing there’s a nontrivial chance she’s lost weight because of a serious illness like lung cancer.
Either that or she had WLS because she had I dunno – congestive heart failure maybe, OR she had very bad complications.
The person I KNOW had WLS and NEEDS to be outed is Mike Huckabee. That prick has the gall to use his weight loss to attack Michael Moore and scapegoat the entire healthcare system as the fault of fat people.
D ~
In case you were serious with that question. The cone of silence was a device in Maxwell Smart that was used to keep from being overheard.
Fatfu, do you have any evidence on Huckabee having WLS? I can pitch the story at work if there’s anything to go on… it wouldn’t get picked up unless he made some outrageous public statement, but then, maybe picking on Michael Moore would qualify.
Michelle – I actually don’t give an eff about Star Jones. What I find interesting, after her years on television, is that she doesn’t seem to understand reporters very well. Try to keep something a secret and it becomes a bigger deal than it really is.
Bariatric surgery does work for some people and for some it does have a positive effect on their health; however, the priciples of Health at Every Size also do. In fact, according to a 2005 study out of UC Davis, HAES principles are better at improving health outcomes and depression than dieting over a two year period. But do we hear about this? No. It makes me wonder why not. Why is bariatric surgery being touted as a panacea by some when a less invasive intervention has been shown to also improve outcomes?
spinsterwitch, what makes you assume that she doesn’t understand reporters? Maybe what she understands is that being all mysterious about her weight loss = publicity, keeping her name in the public eye. She has no real redeeming value as a commentator / reporter / whatever herself, so she uses the publicity that comes her way. Seems pretty media-savvy, to me.
Maggi – I was going on the limited information in the linked to article. I have to admit that I didn’t read it terribly closely, though, since I’m really not fond her her, in general.
Maggi
Don’t forget to add: “And if they’re busy gossiping about my weight, they aren’t gossiping about my husband” to the media-savviness of SJ-R.
While I couldn’t care less whether she had WLS or not, I can’t help feeling like Star’s stringing everything along just to keep her name in the magazines. And, why, really? I mean, she’s done nothing of note lately.
I think you just answered your own question there, Chubby Mommy!
Wow, there are some totally great feminist talking around here. I’m curious what is meant by “nothing of note”? Also there seem to be a lot of problematic assumptions here and clearly people buying into some obvious stereotypes.
Speaking only for myself, I don’t think disliking one particular celebrity is anti-feminist. There are a lot of things I don’t like about Star Jones–she wears fur, she is diva-ish (particularly around her wedding, I’m sure you remember all the controversy there), and she has been irritatingly (to me) disingenuous about her surgery.
That’s not to say I don’t appreciate your challenging stereotypes when you see them–and if there are problematic assumptions being made, I’d love to address them. But to me, Star Jones definitely does not equal all celebrities, all black women, or all fat women. She’s a phenomenon all her own.
Disliking a particular celebrity is not anti-feminist nor did I say it was. I was more talking about the spirit of some of the comments which I found problematic. For one thing I am always weirded out when I hear black women described as “diva-ish” when i see the same behavior in white women not described as such. P L E N T Y of celebs are grab bag junkies, will take free stuff from everyone, raise all kinds of foolishness and feel entitled to everything. Somehow it reads as problematic to me because there are already so many negative associations with black wmen and I notice on a lot of places people aren’t willing to hear observations about that. I think there are ways to talk about a person’s problematic natural that are totally productive and then I think there are ways to talk about that are not useful.
I’m not uncomfortable with the idea that I might be off about Star Jones, but to be honest the argument on the other side has never been entirely too compelling. Wearing fur, not the wisest most appropriate choice.
And your last comment, seems kind of a weird thing to say to a black woman making these observations based on her own experiences with how fat black women are perceived.
My goal isn’t to make Star Jones likeable. I don’t even care for that much, but criticisms about her are not about who she’s married to or why she didn’t tell everyone about how she lost weight or anything other than some ideological beliefs that don’t mesh with mine.
but what do I know.
Well, if I can’t talk about the issue credibly because I’m not a black woman, my hands are tied, you know? (I’m going to respond anyway, of course.)
As for the term “diva,” I didn’t realize it was a loaded term. When I think of “diva” I think of J. Lo, Mariah Carey, and Star Jones as being the classic divas. But those are, in fact, all women of color, which makes me curious. I would be very interested to hear what other people think about this. Is it a loaded term? Is there a reason nobody really calls Martha Stewart a diva? (Or do they?)
Star Jones is definitely not the hill I want to die on, either. But I can’t think of another celebrity who’s been quite as “gimme free crap” as Star Jones. I mean I remember her trying to get tons of endorsements for her wedding and I feel she’s kind of in a league of her own.
Paris Hilton and Sally Kirkland immediately come to mind. But that’s neither here nor there.
Anyway, I find Diva as it’s usually applied pretty loaded, but I’m really into deconstructing language and looking at the ways in which it gets used against people. My assumption about why people don’t call Martha Stewart a diva is there is a belief that she is somehow entitled to all she has. Whereas when it’s used in the context that you mentioned and about the celebs you mention it comes across as suggesting they are demanding things they are not entitled.
I tend to see Diva as it’s often used as a way to police who should and shouldn’t have access to certain things and not really useful in addressing what can be at times some really problematic behavior, which I didn’t dispute Star Jones having!