Kristin Davis says that she was told not to gain weight while starring on Melrose Place.
Davis, 59, appeared on the Fox primetime soap from 1995 to 1996, and would later join the cast of HBO’s Sex and The City — the most iconic credit on her acting resume.
But before stepping into Charlotte York’s stilettos, Davis played Melrose Place villain Brooke Armstrong and struggled with the pressure to live up to unrealistic body standards.
Davis told People in an interview published on Wednesday, February 5, that one time, her costar Thomas Calabro approached her while she was in her makeup trailer and revealed some disturbing news.
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“He’s like, ‘Kristin, I’m so happy to see you here,’” she recalled Calabro, 66, saying. “‘I just wanna tell you, you know, I think you look great,’ and I’m like, ‘Oh, thank you. What are you talking about? What do you mean?’ He said, ‘Oh, I know that the producers are really stressed, you know, but I just think it’s amazing that we have a woman who has curves.’”
Davis was confused.
“I just think they shouldn’t, you know, put too much pressure on you,” Calabro reportedly said, to which Davis responded, “What?”
Following their exchange, “I go to the line producer and I’m like, ‘Thomas Calabro just told me that you guys are stressing about my weight. Did someone say something? Did Mr. [Aaron] Spelling say something?’ And he was like, ‘We think you look beautiful,’ and I was like, ‘Yeah, and?’ He goes, ‘Just don’t gain any weight,’” Davis remembered.
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She said that monitoring actors’ weight on set was “normal for a long time. You could look at it either way. But I mean, there was a lot of stress. If you had hips, it was a situation.”
Besides Calabro, Davis’ Melrose Place costars included Heather Locklear and Courtney Thorne-Smith.
“There was a general vibe on the set though, that was difficult, about the thinness situation,” she revealed in her People interview, adding, “Every single person was gorgeous and super skinny. So I was like, ‘This is what I have to do.’”
According to the outlet, Davis started running with a trainer and took 90-minute spin classes back to back.
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“I was frustrated. I was trying to do the thing,” she said. “Of course, I’m sure I wasn’t eating, I have no idea. I don’t remember the eating part.”
Once Davis felt dizzy and “fainted in a parking lot,” and other times she couldn’t remember her name. “It was a lot,” she said.
