# Is "Precious" star Gabourey Sidibe so obese she is in danger of early death? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 12, 2010, 7:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-precious-star-gabourey-sidibe-so-obese-she-is-in-danger-of-early-death/532214 "2010-03-12T07:14:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![DiosaBellissima](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a8b319/32.png) [@DiosaBellissima](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DiosaBellissima)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2010, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-precious-star-gabourey-sidibe-so-obese-she-is-in-danger-of-early-death/532214/61 "2010-03-13T22:29:19Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > She’s 5’5". My guess would be that she’s more like 250 pounds. I’ve done a lot of online searching and I can’t find a reliable source for her weight. Does anyone here know somebody who is very close to the same height and same build as Sidibe? This needs to be someone that you know well enough that you can get their true weight from. Please, please, please, no guessing. I suspect that most people don’t know anybody very similar to her well enough to produce a reasonable guess as to her weight. As a fat ass myself, I’d say Gabby is probably around 250- especially looking at [the pic here](http://www.nydailynews.com/gossip/2010/03/01/2010-03-01_precious_star_gabourey_sidibe_gets_fattened_up_by_lee_daniels_at_naacp_awards_ce.html). Here’s the deal though: Gabby carries a lot of her weight in her face, much more than I do, for instance. Much more than most fat folks I see do, actually. She just has naturally big, round cheeks. Add to that the fact that she has smaller(ish) boobs and it sort of warps how we’re seeing her body. All that is based on my own body and a lot of the fat fashion blogs I read (girls post their stats, then pics of them in various clothes). ---
**Author:** ![Monstera\_deliciosa](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monstera_deliciosa/32/109_2.png) [@Monstera\_deliciosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monstera_deliciosa)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2010, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-precious-star-gabourey-sidibe-so-obese-she-is-in-danger-of-early-death/532214/62 "2010-03-14T00:57:02Z")
Here is a picture of the contestants from one season of the [Biggest Loser.](http://forums.jokersupdates.com/ubbthreads/showthreaded.php?Cat=&Board=TheBiggestLoser&Number=12484482&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=&rc=&fpart=1) Some of the women are roughly in the 5’5" 250 range, with the closest being Dina, pictured near the bottom of the pages, at 5’5" 253. She looks thinner than Gabourey Sidibe, as do most of the other female contestants, except for the women who is at 400 lbs+. My guess, and it is only a guess, (which is why I am not quoting **Wendell Wagner** in this response, so that he doesn’t construe this as a reply that ignored his request for “no guessing”) is that she is somewhere between 275 and 300. Of course, Ms. Sidibe seems to carry a disproportionate amount of weight in her upper arms, which can make a person look fatter than another person of similar weight. (Trust me, I know about that!) ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2010, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-precious-star-gabourey-sidibe-so-obese-she-is-in-danger-of-early-death/532214/63 "2010-03-14T01:15:53Z")
Thanks, Monstera deliciosa. Although you’re making a guess, at least it’s an educated guess, since you’ve looked at pictures with heights and weights given. ---
**Author:** ![Sleeps\_With\_Butterflies](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@Sleeps\_With\_Butterflies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sleeps_With_Butterflies)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2010, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-precious-star-gabourey-sidibe-so-obese-she-is-in-danger-of-early-death/532214/64 "2010-03-14T01:21:59Z")
> [@Meyer6](#): > > That reminds me of when Kirstie Alley started her ‘fat actress’ series, I read that she was ‘tipping the scales at almost 200 pounds’. Kirstie Alley is pretty tall - 5’8" or 5’9" as I recall, and there is no freaking way she weighed only 200 at her peak. I wish they wouldn’t do that - size issues are skewed enough in Hollywood without these kind of wildly wrong estimates. Oh hell yes. Kirstie Alley was 275+ at her heaviest, easily. Oprah also tells these tall tales. She said at her heaviest she was 232 pounds. Come ON. She’s 5’7" and she was at least 250 pounds when she was in _The Color Purple_. Of course, this is the woman who tried to say at her biggest she wore a size 14 Anne Klein suit. Later she said that her wardrobe people would take two Anne Klein suits and tailor them together and would leave the size 14 tag in it and that’s why she believed it. Suuuuuure. I’d say Ms Sidibe is over 300 pounds if pressed for a guesstimate. ---
**Author:** ![Not\_a\_Platypus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/d26b3c/32.png) [@Not\_a\_Platypus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Not_a_Platypus)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2010, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-precious-star-gabourey-sidibe-so-obese-she-is-in-danger-of-early-death/532214/65 "2010-03-14T01:28:49Z")
I’m not sure anyone can accurately guess how much she weighs, since people carry weight in different ways. For example, I weigh over 300 pounds and have known women who weigh 50-70 pounds less that wear the same size clothes or larger than I do. I don’t know what exactly makes the difference, but it’s there. ---
**Author:** ![MPB\_in\_Salt\_Lake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c0e974/32.png) [@MPB\_in\_Salt\_Lake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MPB_in_Salt_Lake)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2010, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-precious-star-gabourey-sidibe-so-obese-she-is-in-danger-of-early-death/532214/66 "2010-03-14T02:04:59Z")
## If she isn’t 300 pounds, she is within just a couple of trips to the all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet away from it… I can’t understand that the OP’s question is even being debated. She is morbidly obese by ANY definition of the term—I don’t think that Gabourey Sidibe (who seems like an articulate, intelligent young woman) would tell anyone any different. She owns a mirror. It’s not a close call, she is huge and her obesity cannot help but take a serious toll on her health. ---
**Author:** ![torie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/77aa72/32.png) [@torie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/torie)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2010, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-precious-star-gabourey-sidibe-so-obese-she-is-in-danger-of-early-death/532214/67 "2010-03-14T03:10:00Z")
What obscures the issue is that lately, all out assaults on the heavy are often disguised under a layer of “but I’m just concerned about theeiiirrr healllllth.” Of course, it’s logical to be concerned about an obese person’s health, so it’s hard to actually say that the person’s intention is just to be mean spirited. FWIW, I think Stern is much more concerned with feeling superior to someone than actually helping anyone. Of course her weight is unhealthy, but you can overcome all kinds of obstacles if you’re good, and she’s good (even if the movie was not). Her weight is none of my business. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2010, 11:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-precious-star-gabourey-sidibe-so-obese-she-is-in-danger-of-early-death/532214/68 "2010-03-14T11:06:04Z")
Please note that no one in this thread has disputed the fact that she is obese. Whether anyone has disputed the fact that she is morbidly obese depends on what that term means. If it just means that she is so fat that it means that her expected lifespan is shorter than average, that’s true. If it means that she is in imminent danger of death, that’s false. One of the things being disputed is whether Stern was talking mostly about her likelihood of dying soon. (He wasn’t really. Nearly all of his rant was about her unlikihood of getting any other acting jobs.) Another thing being disputed is whether her weight is any of Stern’s business and why he thinks he should discuss anyone else’s health. A third thing being discussed is what her actual weight is. ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2010, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-precious-star-gabourey-sidibe-so-obese-she-is-in-danger-of-early-death/532214/69 "2010-03-14T15:08:56Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > One of the things being disputed is whether Stern was talking mostly about her likelihood of dying soon. (He wasn’t really. Nearly all of his rant was about her unlikihood of getting any other acting jobs.) This is patently incorrect. Here is my OP quoted below. I only claim it was “part” of his critique, which it was in the audio I quoted up thread. I made no claim that it was what his rant was “mostly” about. > [@](#): > > Howard Stern went on a tear against Precious star Gabourey Sidibe, and as part of his critique of her claimed she is in imminent danger of death due to her extreme obesity. His cutting humor aside does he have a point? Is she really so fat she is in imminent danger of dying? ---
**Author:** ![Cisco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ccd318/32.png) [@Cisco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cisco)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2010, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-precious-star-gabourey-sidibe-so-obese-she-is-in-danger-of-early-death/532214/70 "2010-03-14T15:33:50Z")
Howard has not really been ranting about Gabourey Sidibe. You’d never know it if you listened to the press, because he’s the most misquoted/taken out of context guy on the planet, but you’d know it if you listened to his show. Yes, he’s goofed on her here and there, but he says what you know damn well most people are thinking. It’s a comedy show and people don’t tune in to hear him dance around a subject with political correctness. I’ve heard nastier things said about her in real life by people who would gasp at the mention of Howard’s name. He’s actually been quite complimentary of her several times. He says she’s a good actor, seems like a good person, etc. He’s been ranting about the Hollywood fuckheads who are blowing this fantasy up her ass about having a long, great career ahead of her. She doesn’t. She so obviously doesn’t, guys. Of course she’s gonna coast through a few roles after getting an Oscar nomination, but she will not be working in 10 years. I’ll be pretty surprised if she’s working in 5. And yes, **lissener** , he actually has told Louie Anderson that he needs to lose weight. I don’t know about John Goodman (but I don’t doubt it), and I’ve never heard of the other person you mentioned. And yes, he frequently talks about his weight problems in the 80s, and how he overcame them. He was eating takeout every day and letting stress get to him. He became obese. His parents sat him down and told him they were concerned. He started running and eating healthy food, and he’s been thin since then. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2010, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-precious-star-gabourey-sidibe-so-obese-she-is-in-danger-of-early-death/532214/71 "2010-03-14T16:29:46Z")
Yeah, astro, but note that the title of this thread is about the chances that she will die an early death. You did indeed say that Stern’s rant was only partly about her chances of an early death, but you were the one who chose to start a thread which was about that subject. I don’t know why you’re so convinced that her career will be over in 10 years, Cisco. What knowledge of the film industry do you have that other people don’t have? ---
**Author:** ![Cisco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ccd318/32.png) [@Cisco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cisco)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2010, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-precious-star-gabourey-sidibe-so-obese-she-is-in-danger-of-early-death/532214/72 "2010-03-14T17:04:30Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > I don’t know why you’re so convinced that her career will be over in 10 years, Cisco. What knowledge of the film industry do you have that other people don’t have? Oh cut the crap. You know as well as everyone else. Just like Howard said, turn around and look at everyone else in the room during the Oscars. Even Oprah, Mo’nique, and Latifah - the women remarkable for being successful large black women - are half her size. This is just one of those stunts Hollywood pulls every once in awhile so that when someone says they never recognize obese women they can say “yes we do, we nominated Gabourey Sidibe for an Academy Award.” ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2010, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-precious-star-gabourey-sidibe-so-obese-she-is-in-danger-of-early-death/532214/73 "2010-03-14T17:22:44Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > It’s complicated. Could you do it in a paragraph for someone didn’t watch beyond the first three episodes? ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2010, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-precious-star-gabourey-sidibe-so-obese-she-is-in-danger-of-early-death/532214/74 "2010-03-14T17:41:03Z")
Cisco writes: \> You know as well as everyone else. No, I don’t. ---
**Author:** ![Cisco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ccd318/32.png) [@Cisco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cisco)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2010, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-precious-star-gabourey-sidibe-so-obese-she-is-in-danger-of-early-death/532214/75 "2010-03-14T17:46:07Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > No, I don’t. K. ---
**Author:** ![torie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/77aa72/32.png) [@torie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/torie)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2010, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-precious-star-gabourey-sidibe-so-obese-she-is-in-danger-of-early-death/532214/76 "2010-03-14T21:46:23Z")
My prediction is that 1. She’ll lose some weight. 2. She’ll find a niche. Mo’Nique did the same thing. ---
**Author:** ![suranyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@suranyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/suranyi)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2010, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-precious-star-gabourey-sidibe-so-obese-she-is-in-danger-of-early-death/532214/77 "2010-03-15T02:43:48Z")
> [@torie](#): > > My prediction is that > > 1. She’ll lose some weight. > > 2. She’ll find a niche. > > Mo’Nique did the same thing. And she won’t die imminently. ---
**Author:** ![Shirley\_Ujest](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shirley\_Ujest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shirley_Ujest)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2010, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-precious-star-gabourey-sidibe-so-obese-she-is-in-danger-of-early-death/532214/78 "2010-03-15T13:05:01Z")
With any luck, Stern will die before her, at an all you can eat buffet table. Ragetti That would be Ironic. /Ragetti ---
**Author:** ![you\_with\_the\_face](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ecccb3/32.png) [@you\_with\_the\_face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/you_with_the_face)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2010, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-precious-star-gabourey-sidibe-so-obese-she-is-in-danger-of-early-death/532214/79 "2010-03-15T13:59:54Z")
> [@Cisco](#): > > Oh cut the crap. You know as well as everyone else. Just like Howard said, turn around and look at everyone else in the room during the Oscars. Even Oprah, Mo’nique, and Latifah - the women remarkable for being successful large black women - are half her size. Do you think her career potential would be significantly better if she were to become thin? Consider that there aren’t a whole lot of actresses out there getting big parts that look like skinnier versions of her, let alone fat ones. To believe her casting potential would dramatically improve if she were to lose the one thing that got her foot in the door is a leap of faith. It’s not like if she were to become skinny overnight, she’d be competing against Kate Hudson or even black actresses like Sanaa Latham. Howard Stern’s negative predictions about her long-term chances could just as easily apply to the girl if she were bone thin, if we are going to judge her by Hollywood’s myopic standards. (I’m not even going to spell out what those standards are, because we all know them by heart.) Stern simply went after the one obvious and politically safe thing to target; he could have just easily talked about her dark complexion or her lack of pretty facial features. ---
**Author:** ![MeanOldLady](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/meanoldlady/32/10737_2.png) [@MeanOldLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MeanOldLady)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2010, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-precious-star-gabourey-sidibe-so-obese-she-is-in-danger-of-early-death/532214/80 "2010-03-15T14:05:44Z")
So we all agree! Her career will be short-lived, and if she doesn’t cut down on the biscuits, she will be as well. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-precious-star-gabourey-sidibe-so-obese-she-is-in-danger-of-early-death/532214.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-precious-star-gabourey-sidibe-so-obese-she-is-in-danger-of-early-death/532214.md?page=5)