Leading by example. Melanie Lynskey has been candid about embracing her body through the years.
“It’s been a very long journey. I fought against it for a very long time — the shape that my body’s supposed to be,” the Candy star confessed during a June 2022 interview with theSkimm. “[It’s] hard to be a size 10 next to a size 0. I spent many years not really eating and being very worried about what I look like.”
Lynskey, who admitted to struggling with an eating disorder as a teenager, explained that suffering a miscarriage made her see her body in a new light.
“A couple of years ago, I had a miscarriage and I just didn’t really recover from it physically and having a very young daughter made me really think about: ‘OK, I need to be kinder to myself and accepting and saying sorry to my body for what it just went through,’” the Sweet Home Alabama actress said at the time, noting that she wanted to give her daughter, whom she welcomed with husband Jason Ritter in December 2018, a “positive example of what it looks like to have a mother who just is accepting her body.”
While Lynskey has learned to love her curves, she’s been frequently criticized by others for her appearance.
“Her body says life of luxury … not post apocolyptic [sic] warlord. Where is [Terminator star] Linda Hamilton when you need her?” former America’s Next Top Model champ Adrianne Curry tweeted in February 2023, alleging that Lynskey wasn’t the right fit to play Kathleen on HBO’s The Last of Us, which premiered one month prior.
The New Zealand native, for her part, quickly clapped back at Curry’s claims. She wrote via Twitter: “I’m playing a person who meticulously planned & executed an overthrow of FEDRA. I am supposed to be SMART, ma’am. I don’t need to be muscly. That’s what henchmen are for.”
She continued at the time: “I’m also grateful because the love and support I receive from you all is so overwhelming and powerful — I feel like we are a community and I feel very seen and loved. I’m so grateful to Craig and Neil for creating a truly new character. Someone I have never seen before. And for trusting me with her. … The thing that excited me most about doing #TheLastOfUs is that my casting suggested the possibility of a future in which people start listening to the person with the best ideas.”
Not only has Lynskey stood up for herself against trolls, but she also has the support of the Parenthood alum, whom she married in 2020.
“If anyone has any further unsolicited comments about *anybody* else’s body, they can feel free to write them in permanent ink onto their own foreheads and swan dive directly into the sun,” Ritter tweeted in January 2022, cosigning one of the Yellowjackets star’s past clapbacks over criticism about her appearance.
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Scroll below to read Lynskey’s most empowering quotes about body positivity:
