Episode 36 - Portia de Rossi & the Secret That Nearly Killed Her

Portia de Rossi

Oprah calls actress Portia de Rossi "poised, glamorous, and half of one of the most celebrated couples in American history." In 2008 when Portia married Ellen DeGeneres she appeared extremely healthy. When she hit it big in 1998 after coming onto the hit show Ally McBeal, Oprah tells us in a voiceover that despite being described as "oozing sex appeal", Portia was terrified that the tabloids would find out that she was a lesbian. She hid her sexuality, while simultaneously being obsessed with her weight. In an effort to be thin, she would binge, purge, and secretly starve herself, reaching a devastatingly low weight of only 82 pounds (she's 5'7"; that put her at a BMI of 12.8; anything under 18.5 is considered underweight) in the year 2000.

Here to give an interview and talk about her new book, Unbearable Lightness: A Story of Loss and Gain, Portia says her story is for anyone who has ever struggled with their body image. Portia says that writing the book was very cathartic, but that it was difficult to create the persona of this beautiful and happy heterosexual woman while in reality she was gay and starving herself.

Portia reads from page 49 of her book, graphically describing a binging episode. She talks about how much she hated binging because she felt like such a failure for failing another diet. Oprah reads from page 7, in which Portia describes waking up and doing deep lunges across her room to the bathroom. Mentally, she was promising herself to cut her daily calorie consumption for the day to 150 and to take 20 laxatives, while sobbing because she had failed and eaten 6 ounces of yogurt. Less than her fear of the yogurt was the fear that she had utterly lost all control and wouldn't get it back. Meanwhile, she figured that the sobbing and lunges had to burn at least 30 calories.

Oprah and Portia discuss the fact that the book was written from the perspective of Portia then, accessing the very sick person. Portia says she's a little afraid people will think she's crazy, but that who she was at the time thought she was being healthy, counting calories and being disciplined and exercising. She felt she was ultimately exercising the self-control necessary to be an actress and to fit into her wardrobe. Portia did her first diet at 12 years old, when she began modeling. She would diet to do a job, then reward herself with food, and then start the cycle over again.

The L'Oréal Fitting & American Beauty Standards
Oprah tells us that we all know what it's like to be at the department store, trying on clothes off the rack, and feeling humiliated when the size we thought we were is too small. Portia recounts, in tandem with Oprah reading from her book, an experience in which she was the new face of L'Oréal. During a fitting, none of the skirts or suits would fit. Instead of making a case for herself that the European sizing was too small, that she really was a size 4 despite these size 4's not fitting, she simply felt humiliated, mentally berating herself for being unprofessional and not being thin enough. The frustrated costume designer yelled out, "Nobody told me she was a size 8!", which Portia says was the most humiliating moment of her whole life. Instead of supporting her, Portia's manager said, "Just face it honey, you have big legs."

Oprah talks about how, for her, a size 8 is goal weight. Portia says that at 5'6" a size 8 is where a person's body should be, but that American beauty standards have become so emaciated that it pressures people to be unhealthy. After that fitting, Portia started the diet that turned into anorexia, and she says at that point she literally would have rather died than fail one more diet.

The Ally McBeal Strip Tease Scene
Portia signed up to a play a cold, smart lawyer on Ally McBeal. Within a few episodes, however, she was literally begging her boss to sleep with her. Because she couldn't control her character's storyline, all she could control was her weight. In a scene in which she strips down to sexy lingerie, her ribs are sticking out from being so thin (though, by current standards, she looks like pretty much every other swimsuit / underwear model that we see everyday in American advertising).

Oprah asks if Portia felt thin; she replies that she asked everyone she knew how she looked, desperate for validation. A friend told her that she looked like a, "normal, healthy, woman." Portia says those three words sent her into shock. Who wants to be "normal"? Then, "healthy" made her feel pudgy, robust, and "woman" suggested curvy. She wanted to be skinny, straight up and down, an androgynous girl, almost.

Making A Name for Herself
As a teen, Portia was a track and field star. The only girl who kept beating her was named Amanda Rogers; that just happened to also be her name. So, at age 15, she was desperate to make a name for herself. What was the point if she ever could even win, if it just looked like the other girl again because she had the same name? So she came up with the most exotic name she could, and has been Portia de Rossi ever since.


Hating Herself
After a break, we see a clip of Portia reading the excerpt from her book about the 6 ounces of yogurt. In tears, she reads a line she made herself say out loud at the time (because speaking the line surely would burn more calories than just thinking it), "You're an ordinary, average, fat piece of ****. You have no self-control. You're a stupid, fat, disgusting dyke. You ugly, stupid bitch." She describes the quiet in her head, how much she truly hates herself when the voice stops and it gets quiet.


Oprah asked Portia what she saw then, when she was so thin. Portia saw that she was starving herself, saw her emaciated arms, but her eye would jump to the inch of fat on her stomach and the few inches of fat on her inner thighs.

Realizing Her Sexuality
Portia says she always liked men, but slowly realized she was gay because, though she assumed that she would be heterosexual, she developed strong feelings for her best friends that went beyond friendship. She realized that her best friend wanted to marry a man and have children, while Portia wanted to spend her life with her best friend. She would pretend to drink too much at parties and try to seduce her best friends, thinking she was experimenting with another straight girl. She didn't want to be gay, so she didn't want to experiment with a lesbian because then she must be gay.

Hiding Her Sexuality
Portia describes watching closely what happened when Ellen came out as a lesbian in 1997. Portia said that there were no roles for gay actresses and pretending to be straight was a necessity. She felt that if someone as charming and well-loved as Ellen DeGeneres could have her career crash and burn for being gay then there was "no way in hell" she could come out as a lesbian. Oprah reminds the audience that, in 1997, Ellen was vilified, and Portia reminds people that Ellen lost her sitcom almost immediately after.

Oprah tells Portia that she, Oprah, played the therapist on the episode in which Ellen came out, and Oprah says she got more hate mail for that role than she'd ever received in her entire career. Crying, Portia says it really hurts her to hear that. Oprah asks Portia about being a famous person hiding her sexuality, and Portia says it's the most horrible way to live. Portia says that if everyone in every profession came out then she thinks it would drastically change society and put an end to the recent slew of teen suicides.

Starved
Portia says that hiding an eating disorder was fairly easy. She recounts an episode, however, in which she put a piece of 5 calorie chewing gum in her mouth, and though she regularly chewed gum, she was so starved that it sent a rush through her body. She had been "dieting successfully" (starving herself) for weeks, and it was one of the first times that she just utterly failed. She found herself shoving piece after piece of gum in her mouth, and suddenly she realized she had put in 60 calories worth of gum. Nothing mattered more to her than getting rid of those 60 calories, so she got out of her car and sprinted as fast as she could from end to end of the Beverly Hills parking lot she was in, dodging cars, pedestrians, whatever, in order to burn off the calories. She was in platform heels and on Ally McBeal at the time, but she didn't care how she looked or if anyone recognized her. She only needed to get rid of the calories.

Ally McBeal "Scary Skinny" Stories
Oprah asks Portia if there was any pressure to be skinny on the Ally McBeal show. A slew of stories about her, Calista Flockhart, and Courtney Thorne-Smith had hit the tabloids. Portia says the pressure did exist, but no one on the show was pressuring her to be thin. What she saw happening was that it was the tail end of the supermodel craze, when suddenly actresses were the ones on the covers of magazines like Vogue instead of supermodels. Actresses in general felt a pressure to be super thin and she saw everyone else dieting so she figured she was simply dieting like every other actress.

The Christmas Wake-Up Call
At the height of her eating disorder, Portia allowed herself 300 calories per day. She went home to Australia for Christmas and her family made a big deal about how small she was. Everyone was watching her, so she ate a very small amount of food. She describes the terror of turkey roasted in its own fat, beans glazed with oil, and potatoes. She became obsessed in her head not with the one or two potatoes she had just eaten, but the potatoes she would eat sometime in the rest of her life.

Horrified at the prospect, she began doing jumping jacks in the middle of the living room. Her family thought she was crazy but she felt that they just didn't know what it was like to be her, to know the pressure on her to be thin. Then, however, her brother, whom she had never seen cry, broke down and told her that she was going to die. This was the first time she woke up and she began to think about getting better.

Why She Changed
After that, she collapsed on a movie set. Upon going to doctors and getting many tests, they found osteoporosis, cirrhosis of the liver, joint pain such that she could barely move, all at age 25. The doctor told her that her organs were near failing, and she realized she had a choice. She wanted to live, but not as a sick person. She wanted to find joy and believed it had to be out there somewhere.

Ellen Speaking About Portia
Oprah's producers sat down with Ellen, who says that she met Portia after her struggle with eating disorders. She says that she knew it had been bad but had no idea how bad it was until Portia began writing the book. Ellen says that Portia, "saves me every minute of the day. I don't know what I would do without her." Ellen says Portia is loving, kind, and generous to everyone. It breaks her heart that Portia hated herself so much when she is the most amazing person that Ellen knows. She's clearly very proud that Portia is her wife.

Portia Speaking About Ellen
Portia also says in her book that Ellen saves her everyday. Oprah asks about this, and Portia says that love saved her. Portia says that being loved by Ellen makes her feel like maybe she should start accepting herself exactly the way she is. Portia met Ellen at her heaviest, 168 pounds. She says that it's lovely to know that no matter how heavy or old she gets, Ellen sees the "whatever" it is inside of her that makes her uniquely her. Portia recently changed her name, legally, to Portia DeGeneres, telling Oprah that she is proud to be Ellen's wife. She likes the significance of taking her name and feeling like that makes her feel more a part of Ellen's family.

Portia & Ellen's Farm
Cameras have never been allowed on Portia and Ellen's 26 acre farm outside of Los Angeles. Portia says this is where she and Ellen come almost every weekend. They have horses, and Portia rides about three times a week; she says the stables are most definitely her favorite place on earth. Portia says that she got one horse, May, at the height of her illness and the horse taught her about health and life, that the horse saved her life.

Portia's Diet & Exercise Now
Oprah asks about Portia's diet and exercise routine now. Portia says she doesn't like exercise, and she doesn't like to do it. She refuses to use the word; instead she lives an active life, doing things that she loves to do to keep herself healthy. Namely, she walks her dogs around the neighborhood every day and finds great joy in it.

The Importance of Support for a Gay Person
At the end of the show we learn that after her brother spoke to her, Portia's mother pulled her aside and told her that she didn't care if she was gay or how big she was, but that she loved her and she just wanted Portia to live. Portia describes feeling hope for the first time that she could be ok. Portia said to her mother, "I know you've been ashamed of me," because her mother had said it was ok that Portia was gay but she didn't want Portia to tell anyone.

Her mother told her that she felt that Portia's homosexuality was a private matter, but Portia told her that there is a very fine line between private and ashamed. Portia felt conflicted, as her mother said she loved her just as she was and yet wanted her to keep who she was under wraps. Portia makes clear that her mother didn't know she was sending this message or hurting her daughter. She says the best thing anyone can say to someone who is coming out to them is, "Who cares," because they love them anyway. The audience cheers at this.

Fine Line Between Dieting and Crazy
Oprah plugs Portia's book again, and asks Portia about the fact that Portia wrote the book for everyone who has ever been on a diet. Portia says that there's a fine line between chronic dieters and people who have full-blown eating disorders. Portia says that the key is to never restrict any food, even in portion size, because once the restrictions are removed the food no longer holds its power. Knowing that you're allowed to eat whatever you want, as much as you want, causes the appeal of overeating to wane, and over time you simply eat what your body needs in healthy amounts. Oprah tells her this is how she, Portia, healed herself, and Portia agrees.

Oprah thanks Portia and closes out the show.

Gospel Filter Review
Man alive, there is a LOT in this episode. I'll try to break it down as simply as possible, and rely heavily on previous posts about these topics.

Body Image & Food
For previous posts, read here. Something that really stood out to me, though, is that the "crazy" Portia talks about, the absolute obsession with calories and her weight, is one I could totally relate to. I remember berating myself that I would binge and purge and yet I was still fat, while all other women who do so were, in my mind, thin like Portia. The absolute obsession (yes, I'm repeating the phrase, intentionally without worry of redundancy) becomes so normal that you can't see that you are acting crazy, that it's not healthy to log every calorie you eat, weighed on a food scale to the gram, and wonder how many calories you are burning if you tap both of your legs while sitting in church.

Also, I did relate to what she said about what changes when you stop restricting food is that you naturally just desire better food in realistically healthy quantities. I have noticed that happen since I became pregnant and have basically not been allowed to diet anymore. That said, I don't agree that this fixes you. For one, I'm not sure that happens for everyone (especially not those who overeat) and ultimately, we know from scripture that the problem is not our head, it's our heart. Our heart is what desires sovereignty. Something Portia never addressed (though I've not read her book, so maybe the book does) is the fact that her desire for consummate control is wrong. She doesn't profess to be a Christian in love with Jesus, so I don't expect her to speak in these terms, but the desire to control everything and make sense of the world by controlling whatever she possibly can is sinful. God is in control and only in submission to His will, asking Him to fill our hearts so that we not only have wisdom in how to navigate life but are able to delight in His will for us, will ever give us true joy.

Love as Savior & True Unconditional Love
Something we can redeem is the idea that love saves you. I would sort of agree with this, only it's not the love of a romantic partner that saves us. Portia finds self-acceptance in her wife, Ellen, seeing her as a beautiful, amazing person and loving her for how incredible she is. But what actually frees us to enjoy ourselves, counter-intuitive as it may seem, is realizing that we actually are wretched beyond belief. No good thing comes from us. Our hearts are desperately wicked, our motives are always selfish when you get to their most base root. The fact that anything remotely good can happen with regards to humanity is a gift of God's common grace. And yet, at our worst, Jesus gives us His best because God loves us.

...but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Romans 5:8

When we realize that only God's love is truly unconditional, that He already loved us at our worst and now nothing can ever separate us from him, no matter how awful we are, that changes everything. Being loved for this amazing person someone else sees feels good, but what happens when they change their mind? Or we blow it big time? What happens when we have a hard season that lasts months or even years and we're grouchy and selfish and mean and they decide they've had enough? Our hope can't be in never letting our inner-ugly come out. Our hope is in the fact that no matter how bad we are, Jesus already died for that sin and if we belong to Christ then we can be cleansed and forgiven and free.

I pray Portia would know this love, true love that sees her as a beautiful daughter created by God and loved so deeply by Him that He nailed His son to the cross for her.

Homosexuality
I've written at length about what the Bible says, so definitely peruse these posts if you're new. I'll reiterate the most crucial point: yes, God says that to act on homosexual desires (either physically or mentally) is sin. However, the goal is never to tell someone to "stop being gay" and come to Jesus. A gay person's sin with regards to sexuality is no different than any other person's sexual sin, and Jesus will deal with the homosexually related sin as He sees fit. Yes, the person does need to repent of homosexually related sin and it's a lie that we need to "accept gay people as they are" (we can reject this message from Oprah and Portia), but it's not any person's cause or concern to harp on Portia's being gay or married to a woman. It's certainly not my cause, and any Christian who makes this their cause needs to get with Jesus on why they are nit-picking this one issue with regards to non-Christians.

Something that stood out to me, though, is Portia's pain of struggling with her sexuality. Ultimately, homosexuality is a choice. However, the choice only matters after a person has received Jesus' free gift of grace, because the choice is not to be either gay or straight. Rather, it is to worship Jesus by seeking, honoring, and obeying Him or to choose sin. As Christians, we need only be concerned with one sin in non-Christians: the sin of rejecting Jesus. If a person doesn't know Jesus, we can be honest and tell them that acting on homosexuality is further rebellion against God and their choice to act on that sin is breaking His heart.

We don't have to "accept them as they are", but neither should we shame them for one sin that is no more or less egregious than all of their other choices to rebel against God's desire for them to receive His son and obey him. True love is pointing the person to Jesus and not being threatened by their sin, even if that sin includes things like homosexuality that might make us uncomfortable. This is far more redemptive than telling them their sin is okay, and it's actually sin on our part if we tell them that Jesus has a problem with homosexuality but we don't tell them the truth, that it doesn't matter what they do because unless they receive Jesus then even their attempt to stop being gay on their own is still just more sin.

[EDIT 9:26 pm: I am so bummed that I forgot this originally! Here is a GREAT video of a man who was caught up in the gay lifestyle who became a Christian. He shares how his life has changed since meeting and falling in love with Jesus! He now leads a Redemption Group at one of our Mars Hill Church campuses in the Seattle area. It's the same ministry I lead in and it's just so beautiful to be a part of stories like this of how God redeems people through Jesus.

I'm embedding it below--it's seriously that good!]


Pastor Bill Interviews Dan from Mars Hill Church | Ballard on Vimeo.

Again, my prayer is for Portia to know true freedom, true love, in Jesus Christ. I pray this for Oprah as well. Your thoughts on what I have said are welcome and appreciated.


Up Tomorrow
First Television Interview: Ricky Martin Coming Out as a Gay Man