JANE GREEN: The shameful truth about Barbra Streisand's acid-tongued attack on ... trends now
Melissa McCarthy rocked up to a Gala in LA this weekend in a glamorous mint green dress and looking newly slender and superb.
Clearly proud of this lighter look, Melissa posted pictures of her and choreographer Matthew Bourne to her Instagram. But one A-lister wasn't prepared to let her have her moment:
'Give him [Bourne] my regards did you take Ozempic?' Barbra Streisand's official account commented under the photo.
Fans rallied behind McCarthy, stunned at the Oscar-winner's cruelty, at her lack of discretion and, frankly, the seeming bitchiness of the question.
Unsurprisingly, the comment was subsequently removed, with Streisand later taking to Instagram again to insist that McCarthy was a 'friend' and that she was only trying to 'pay her a compliment'.
'I forgot the world is reading!' she added.
Melissa McCarthy rocked up to a Gala in LA this weekend in a glamorous mint green dress and looking newly slender and superb.
But one A-lister wasn't prepared to let her have her moment... Fans rallied behind McCarthy, stunned at Streisand's cruelty, at her lack of discretion and, frankly, the seeming bitchiness of the question.
Certainly, it is at least possible that Streisand, 82, was trying to privately message McCarthy and simply made a mistake. How many older people do we all know who are complete Luddites when it comes to technology?
It reminds me of the many times my 80-year-old mother has forgotten to hang up our phone calls and turned to my father with the line still live. 'Jane is completely bonkers,' she said just the other week.
But if her explanation is to be believed, then Streisand clearly hasn't quite understood that the world has changed. That commenting on weight is simply no longer acceptable – privately or not. That instead we say, 'you look gorgeous', and leave it at that.
To go further not only betrays a lack of compassion, but a lack of good manners.
Of course, in an increasingly packed market, celebrities and those with public profiles must share ever more of themselves online. They have to find novel and often shocking ways to keep followers engaged, encourage fans to watch their latest movies, beg them to buy their books, or even their fancy new jam.
And it's easy then for the rest of us to think we know these people, that we're perhaps entitled to ask invasive questions, pass judgment or seek answers in the comment section that we would never dare demand in real life.
In many ways, we all struggle to feel sorry for the rich and ritzy. They know the game, the deal they've made with the Hollywood devil.
But we are all entitled to some baseline of privacy – and weight in particular is a fragile issue for women, especially those of a certain generation.
Growing up in the seventies – as McCarthy, 53, did – I was raised to believe that anything other than stick-thin was unacceptable.
So-called 'body positivity' didn't exist. Everywhere you looked, front-pages, magazine
