Gwyneth Paltrow’s Shallow Hal body double has revealed she almost “starved to death” and developed “eating disorders” after starring in the hit 2001 film.
In a candid new interview republished by The Guardian, Ivy Snitzer, 42, recalled her time filming the project and said her life dramatically changed after the film was released.
Snitzer said she was “technically starving to death” and had a severe complication after having gastric band surgery, in 2003, two years after the film’s release.
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Gastric band surgery usually helps people lose weight by putting a ring on the top part of the stomach.
She explained she suffered a torsion after the surgery, which is a twist of an organ, which meant she would be sick if she had anything thicker than water.
Snitzer said her mother was dying at the time of her health problems and said her life was incredibly “bleak”.
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“I was so thin you could see my teeth through my face and my skin was all grey,” she said.
The former actress, who now runs her own insurance agency in the U.S., said things became so bad that doctors couldn’t perform surgery to remove the band as she was too underweight.
She also had an IV fluid bag daily to “not die,” before having part of her stomach removed via a gastric bypass operation.
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“I hated my body the way I was supposed to,” she said.
“I had eating disorders that I was very proud of.”
Snitzer, who is now married with a family, insisted that the stars of Shallow Hal, Jack Black and Gwyneth Paltrow were “really nice” and “delightful” to her during filming.
She said while shooting the comedy, which centres on a shallow man falling in love with an overweight woman, she didn’t realise it would be such a hit, which seemed to have a negative affect on her once released.
“It was like the worst parts about being fat were magnified. And no one was telling me I was funny,” she said.
Shallow Hal reportedly grossed a whopping $141 million at the box office upon its release in 2001. It also starred the likes of Jason Alexander.
Paltrow, who portrayed Rosemary in the film, previously spoke about wearing a fat suit in the film.
She previously told W Magazine: “The first day I tried [the fat suit] on, I was in the Tribeca Grand [hotel in New York City] and I walked through the lobby. It was so sad; it was so disturbing. No one would make eye contact with me because I was obese.”
She added: “The clothes they make for women that are overweight are horrible. I felt humiliated because people were really dismissive.”