On This Is Us, Chrissy Metz plays Kate, the middle sister of the Pearson gang. Kate’s relationship with her weight has always been central to her character—we’ve watched her struggle with weight loss, size discrimination, and serious emotional issues that are, in part, responsible for her size.
In season 4 of the hit show, Kate’s husband, Toby, played by Chris Sullivan, loses a bunch of weight on the DL. The transformation has led many viewers to wonder if Chris and Chrissy wear prosthetics, aka fat suits, on the show that make them appear bigger than they are.
While Chris confirmed on Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen that he has filmed in one, Chrissy—a major player in the body-acceptance movement—has not.
But in a 2017 People interview, she revealed that she’d previously been asked to wear a fat suit while filming American Horror story as “Fat Lady” Ima Wiggles.
Chrissy says that after a panic attack landed her in the hospital on her 30th birthday, she lost 100 pounds by eating a 2,000-calorie-per-day diet and walking daily for 20 minutes. And when she was cast in the Ryan Murphy horror series, she was surprised by the request to wear a costume that made her appear bigger.
“I was thrilled to find out that I wasn’t big enough,” she told Yahoo in 2014. “It was a first in my life. It was liberating.”
In the same Yahoo interview, Chrissy goes on to discuss a time she wore her fat suit into her trailer and got stuck the doorway. “I had to suck it in, squish it, knead it, hold the dress, and slowly pull it through until I stumbled down the stairs. I almost wish someone had been there to see, because they would have been laughing their butt off.”
That was a sobering experience: “I thought, What if I become that heavy and can’t walk around or get stuck in the doorframe? I was like, ‘I don’t want this for me,’” she told People.
Although Chrissy hasn’t addressed whether she wears a fat suit on the set of This Is Us, she insists her show contract does not include an explicit weight-loss target or require weight-loss surgery. That said, she did sign on with the understanding that her character Kate would ultimately (spoiler alert!) lose weight. And she’s not mad about it.
In October 2019, Chrissy spoke about her current path to self-love at the Power Women Summit in Santa Monica, California, saying, “I think it’s important for every individual to determine what makes them happy and how to get to that,” according to Us Weekly. “There are some days where I’m like, ‘Oh, I’m definitely eating my feelings.’ And then some days I’m like, ‘Yeah, when my heart is full, I’m not hungry.’”
“So I want to take care of my body and live a healthy life? Absolutely,” she adds. “But that doesn’t mean you can’t do it at an unconventional size.”
Elizabeth Narins is a Brooklyn, NY-based writer and a former senior editor at Cosmopolitan.com, where she wrote about fitness, health, and more. Follow her at @ejnarins.
