Portia de Rossi Talks Dropping Down to 82 Pounds

By PopEater Staff Posted Nov 1st 2010 06:41AM

Portia de Rossi is a skinny lady; anyone who watched her three-season stint on 'Arrested Development' or has seen her on the red carpet with wife Ellen DeGeneres knows that. But back in the 1990s, when she launched her career in the United States with a role on 'Ally McBeal,' the actress was struggling daily with anorexia, an affliction that once brought her weight down to 82 pounds.

The 5'8'' actress tells Oprah Winfrey on Monday's 'The Oprah Winfrey Show' that her eating disorder emerged after she moved from Australia to Hollywood right before landing the 'McBeal' role. She says that at one point she was eating a mere 300 calories a day.

"It wasn't that I was proud of it," she tells Winfrey. "But it was certainly a recognition for my self-control. I definitely had some pretty amazing willpower to get down to 82 pounds. And that's what I was holding onto. I didn't think about anything else."

She also reveals how dedicated she was to losing weight and keeping it off. "I would prefer to die than fail another diet," says the actress, who is promoting her autobiography, 'Unbearable Lightness: A Story of Loss and Gain.'

In the book, she reportedly admits that she took 20 laxatives a day while keeping the illness a secret, and that her eating disorder led to her collapse on the set of the 2001 film 'Who Is Cletis Tout?' Later, she was told she was suffering from Oesteoperosis, cirrhosis, organ failure and the auto-immune disease lupus.

De Rossi also describes meeting DeGeneres in 2001 at a Rock the Vote event. "I remember being so excited and overjoyed to be around her that I can still recall the feeling of running after her back stage."

The actress writes that she owes her strength to DeGeneres, who didn't judge her for being so skinny. "Ellen saw a glimpse of my inner being from underneath the flesh and bone, reached in and pulled me out."

The pair married at their Los Angeles home in 2008. In September, de Rossi officially changed her name to Portia DeGeneres, but appears to be sticking with de Rossi professionally.

Tags: portia de rossi

Comments

(18)

Monday 01 November

By ED

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Bully

By mrmrkw01

Ellen looks pretty yummy if you ask me.Too bad I'm a guy.

By nick

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You could have fooled me, I thought that Ellen would play the boy part with that long tounge.

By mosttrusting

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Wife ellen?Ghee,the united states government would not agree,according to them their marriage isnt real.

By Beth

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Bullies,bullies, bullies. If you continue with these ugly hate filled diatribes, so will your children. End it. Get a grip, be better.

By mari

Please, don’t mix things. It is not a hate, its disgust! It is normal feelings of normal human been from dealing with something ugly and abnormal.

This is like a deal with the cancer. It is what it is! Will you love to have it? Of course not! But you are twisting things around trying making black white and saying that this is normal, when it is NOT! Stop it! There is more hate in what you doing to our children pushing them in wrong direction. I don't let it happen in my family, and since homosexuals can’t have themselves any (children) ...keep shot; I don't let you destroy of any mine own!

By Nancy

There is more to life than looks.

By iam so fat and ugly and dumb

i never heard of these people

By shazza

Some of you people are really sick.
@ kpingzing maybe YOU are the degenerate.

By Kathy

Good Grief!!! What was your first clue she has problems?? Maybe being "married" to another woman?????

By kpingzing

I dont think so , but maybe you are a little you know on the GAY side.

no hate beth just reality. gay people should chose a different path and then they wont get picked on or they should just stay in the closet where these perverts belong.

By JALOO

Shut up you inbred fool.

By Barbara B

Oh pullllllleeeeeze - did you see her in her wedding dress? This Disease has no cure but there is a daily reprieve ... half-truths get us nowhere.

Tuesday 02 November

By Carter

There is no hate in homosexuality. It's 2 people who love each other. The only thing hateful about it ignorant idiots (many examples below).

I'd much rather have my children raised by the above 2 women than any of you spiteful, uneducated freaks.

As far as your precious children, you need to stop worrying, they can't catch "homo."

Thursday 04 November

By confused

Sheez a heez and heez a sheez!

By jt

I wonder if they take turns using the same strap on and if they have one for different holes.. the possibilities are endless.

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