Melissa McCarthy Takes Down Sexist Reporter

Melissa McCarthy has proved she’s not someone to be messed with during an appearance on ‘The Ellen DeGeneres Show’.

The actress who’ll next be seen in this summer’s espionage comedy ‘Spy’ recounted a moving story on the chat show about a sexist review she received for the film ‘Tammy’.

McCarthy says the reporter in question, whose review critiqued her character’s slovenly appearance, confronted her at the Toronto Film Festival.

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“He said, ‘I’m the one who wrote this’, and he said basically I’m only a good actress when I look attractive, and that my husband [Ben Falcone, the director of ‘Tammy’] shouldn’t be allowed to direct me because he let me look hideous in this movie,” the actress told Ellen.

“And it was a lot of things that were just like, ‘How dare women not look beautiful, perfect, and attractive in a movie?’”

She admits she was surprised he’d decided to share his thoughts with her, but thought it was time to put him straight about his negative opinions and the impact they have on women, particularly young ones.

“[I asked] would you do that to a man? If John C. Reilly played a really broken down character and looked terrible [would you ask him]? I put a lot of  time into having her completely not look like she cared about herself… would you ever say that to a man?”

She then took the conversation on a different tack to help the guy learn the error of his ways, asking him if he had children, to which he replied he did.

“I said, ‘I hope you don’t have a daughter’ and I didn’t mean that in a mean way. He spoke about his children so lovely, he was actually a really kind man and he spoke about his son and daughter with a lot of love and kindness.

Above: Melissa in ‘Tammy’

“And I said, when she comes home and someone says to her ‘You can’t have a job because you’re unattractive’, are you going to say, ‘That’s right’?

“And he took that in his heart and said, ‘No, I would never want that to happen. Never in a million years would I want that to happen.’

“So I said, ‘Just know that every time you write stuff, every young girl in this country reads that and they get a little bit chipped away.’

“I think we tear down women in this country for all these superficial reasons and women are so great and strong, and I think he really heard that. The writer was really loving, you could tell he was a loving father. I think it’s just a bad habit that we’ve gotten into, and it’s not that people are malicious, it’s just so easy to take a swipe. Go the other way!”

Way to go Melissa! Watch the full interview with Ellen DeGeneres here.

‘Spy’ is coming to cinemas on 5 June. Watch a trailer below.

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Image credits: Warner Bros. TV/Warner Bros.