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Kate Winslet’s Childhood Bullies Called Her ‘Blubber’

Kate Winslet speaks during WE Day U.K. (Photo: Samir Hussein/WireImage)
Kate Winslet speaks during WE Day UK. (Photo: Samir Hussein/WireImage)

Judy Blume’s Blubber is a contemporary classic children’s book that most kids have read, but for Kate Winslet, the word was a nickname — and not an affectionate one.

“You see, I had been bullied at school,” the British actress revealed Wednesday at the We Day UK event in London. “They called me ‘Blubber.’ Teased me for wanting to act. Locked me in the cupboard. Laughed at me. I wasn’t the prettiest. I had big feet.”

Winslet, 41, recalled that early in her acting career, she also drew negative feedback — not for her acting, but for her body. She was told that she “might be lucky with my acting, if I was happy to settle for the fat girl parts. I’d never let go of that, and they’d say, ‘You’re just not what we’re looking for, Kate.’ This unkindness made me fell truly horrendous.”

Still, Winslet persevered.

“I didn’t lock myself away and give up on my dream,” Winslet shared. “I fought back. I had to ignore the negative comments. I had to believe in myself, I had to choose to rise above it all, and I had to work hard.”

The actress described her surprise when she was cast in Titanic, which created high expectations long before it hit theaters in 1997. By the time the film was released, she had already spent six years working in TV shows and movies, one of which earned her the first of seven Oscar nominations. (She would win once, for 2008’s The Reader.)

“And then one day, I was cast as Rose in Titanic. The most unlikely candidate, Kate from the sandwich shop in Reading,” she said. “Suddenly acting in one of the biggest movies ever made?”

The lesson that she learned was, “You can be from anywhere, and you can do anything. Believe it. I learned to embrace my flaws, to make no apology for who I am.”

Winslet has long spoken out about body image, and famously called out GQ magazine for “excessive” retouching of a cover shot of her. In 2015, she explained that she was working hard to teach her daughter, Mia, now 16, to embrace her body too.

The same day that Winslet worked up a crowd across the pond, Lena Dunham appeared on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, where she was equally candid about the names that she’s been called. The subject came up because the host mentioned that the Girls star, as DeGeneres put it, caught flak last week for showing up at an event looking more fit than usual. Like Winslet, Dunham has been outspoken about body positivity and acceptance.


“It’s just so crazy because I spent six years of my career being called things like ‘bag of milk’ on the Internet — ‘bag of milk, baby cow, aging cow,’” Dunham said. “I just never felt self-conscious about it. I was like, ‘Anyone who is going to take the time to say something negative about my weight on the Internet isn’t someone I was particularly keen to impress anyway.’”

The response to Dunham’s more toned look was different, but in some cases just as negative.

“Then I had this experience of my body changing,” she continued. “Suddenly I got all these people saying, ‘You’re a hypocrite. I thought you were body positive. I thought you were a person who embraced body types of all sizes.’ I do. I just understand that bodies change. We live a long time. Things happen.”

Indeed, they do. Just ask Kate from the sandwich shop what she’s doing these days.

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