You're an up-and-coming actress who's finally gotten your big break on a much-hyped new TV show. What are you gonna do now? If you're
Jessica Stroup and
Shenae Grimes of the CW's "
90210," you're apparently going to cut out unnecessary (read: most) foodstuffs.
At least that's the word from Us Weekly, which, in its "Too Thin for TV" cover story, claims the starlets have become so alarmingly twiggy that producers and their fellow cast mates are about to intercede.
"They want the girls to gain weight," a show insider tells the mag. "They are really worried about them, especially Jessica. They are trying too hard to be skinny, and it's started to wear on them. It's just not healthy." Both actresses previously sported more robust frames, but the mag now estimates that Stroup, at 5-foot-8, tips the scales at only around 100 to 105 pounds, while Grimes, at 5-foot-3, is eyeballed at approximately 90 pounds. Wardrobe sizes are said to range from double-zero to two.
"I've never seen Jessica or Shenae eat," tattles a second source, with still another blabbing, "The two of them smoke like chimneys."
Some of the show's "really concerned" male cast members are planning to have a serious talk with Stroup, 21, and Grimes, 18, about their dwindling silhouettes, according to a mole, who observes, "The girls were all skinny when they started, but they're definitely thinner now."
That's news to
Lori Loughlin, who plays Grimes' mom on the show.
"They are thin, but they've been thin since the day I've met them," she tells In Touch. "It's not like they got on the show and their weight just plummeted."
Pipes in "90210" veteran
Shannen Doherty to "
Extra," "They just have amazing bodies. Deal with it. You can't single out girls that you don't know anything about and decide they're too skinny ... I watch them -- and they eat."
Meanwhile, does the network bear some responsibility for its shrinking stars? A casting agent who works with the CW believes its unrealistic body expectations are partly to blame.
"I know in discussions at ABC and CBS that 'too skinny' is no good. They talk about it as a minus point," the agent explains to Entertainment Weekly. "But at the CW it's a different story. They're trying to pull in the '
Gossip Girl' audience, and that's the image: hyper-skinny models."
This is hardly the first time the female stars of a hit show have been called out for promoting an underfed ideal.
Nearly a decade ago, it was "
Ally McBeal" leading ladies
Calista Flockhart,
Portia de Rossi and
Courtney Thorne-Smith who were topping the tabloids with their scarily attenuated figures (fortunately, all bounced back from their emaciated nadirs). In other fat-free news,
Keira Knightley, whose protruding clavicles and fragile arms have lately been on display as she works the red carpet for "
The Duchess," thinks there might be a solution to the criticism leveled at her featherweight figure.
"That's a good reason to have a kid," she laughed to the London Daily Mirror. "They won't say I'm anorexic any more. S---, I've got to have a child."
Keira, who has repeatedly and vehemently shot down eating-disorder whispers, insisting her wispy body is the result of good genes and a good diet, believes she's trapped between a slim rock and an even slimmer hard place.
"I can't win," she sighs. "One week I'm anorexic, and now my curves are too big. I mean, really? It's a joke. What's next? Am I too tall, too short? Well, I'm sorry, I'm me. It's so predictable to be asked about it, but to me it's not appropriate." And finally,
America Ferrera offers some much-needed perspective on the public's idealized perception of Hollywood beauty.
"I fear that when girls look at my picture in a magazine, they see something that is so unreal -- and they think, 'Oh, America must have it so easy,'" the glowing and healthy "
Ugly Betty" star tells Seventeen. "They should know that I spent two-and-a-half hours with professional people doing my hair, doing my makeup, picking out my clothes, shooting with a professional photographer who has his professional lighting."
