Gwyneth Paltrow’s ‘fat’ double from ‘Shallow Hal’: I almost starved to death

Ivy Snitzer had at all times joked about her measurement, however when it was magnified on the massive display, her insecurities ballooned — and it proved near-fatal.

Snitzer was solid as Gwyneth Paltrow’s physique double within the 2001 flick “Shallow Hal,” that includes Jack Black because the titular character who’s hypnotized to fall head-over-heels for a girl’s inside magnificence slightly than her outward look.

Whereas Paltrow, who performs the function of the chubby love curiosity named Rosemary, wore a fats go well with within the movie, Snitzer, now 42, appeared in close-ups of the character’s physique.

She was by no means offended by the script’s makes an attempt to poke enjoyable at her look — partly because of the truth she, too, cracked comparable jokes — and stated the solid “handled me like I actually mattered, like they couldn’t make the film with out me,” she informed Amelia Tait for her newsletter The Waiting Room.

“It was so thrilling. It was simply enjoyable to be a part of a film – there are so few individuals who really get to do this.”

Paltrow was “very nice” and Black “a pleasant individual,” and the starlet lastly felt seen for her persona — paradoxically, the plot line of the movie — after preventing “actually arduous to be seen as a persona and never simply my measurement.”

However the movie’s seemingly progressive storyline – that the “overweight” character wasn’t a “villain,” however slightly a “cool,” “common” lady — as an alternative welcomed an onslaught of body-shamers who zeroed in on Snitzer’s weight.

It was then that Snitzer’s style of the limelight soured.

Strangers on the road expressed their outrage, others claimed she was selling weight problems — and one individual even went as far as to mail her slimming capsules.

“I obtained actually scared,” she stated. “I used to be, like: Perhaps I’m accomplished with the idea of fame, perhaps I don’t need to be an actor. Perhaps I’ll do one thing else.”

She trekked again to New York and moved in together with her mother and father, juggling numerous jobs — bartender, cater waiter, comic — and whereas casting administrators provided her roles, they have been “imply,” she recalled.

It was the alternative of why the burgeoning starlet ventured to Hollywood within the first place: “I simply need to make individuals chortle; I don’t need to make individuals unhappy.”

Life after her short-lived stardom was not all glitz and glamour — lower than two years after the film’s launch, she almost died resulting from weight reduction.

She was “technically ravenous to demise” after a gastric band surgical procedure had gone improper.

Coupled with extreme train and slipping again into disordered consuming habits inherited from her youth, Snitzer’s band slipped and he or she “obtained a torsion,” a probably deadly abdomen complication.

However her lack of medical insurance compelled her right into a temp job in Beverly Hills, the place she needed to wait out the three-month probation interval and will solely drink liquids the consistency of water.

“I used to be so skinny, you may see my enamel by my face and my pores and skin was all grey,” she stated, including that her “bitchy” angle meant she “alienated” lots of her buddies.

In truth, she was so malnourished that by the point she might search correct medical care, they couldn’t take away her gastric band, she claimed. As an alternative, she acquired IV fluids every evening to “not die” and in the end underwent a gastric bypass process to take away a part of her abdomen.

When reflecting on her determination to go underneath the knife initially, she stated she felt like she “was speculated to.”

“For those who’re fats, you’re speculated to attempt to not be,” stated Snitzer, who now works as an insurance coverage company proprietor in Philadelphia.

Whereas she initially claimed the “Shallow Hal” scrutiny wasn’t tied to her weight-loss surgical procedure — it was merely a coincidence, she stated, that her physician’s stark warning about her weight prompted the process on the time — she admitted that maybe it was linked subconsciously.

“I’m certain I wished to be small and never seen,” she stated. “I’m certain that’s there, however I don’t ever keep in mind consciously excited about it.”

Nevertheless, Snitzer regrets neither the surgical procedure nor her time on set, regardless of the tumultuous aftermath.

In truth, it’s a “cool factor” she did “one time,” she declared — in different phrases, a great story to inform at events.

“It didn’t make me really feel unhealthy about myself,” she stated of the movie. “Till, you understand, different individuals began telling me I in all probability ought to have felt unhealthy about myself.”