A certain kind of cruelty is concealed within the word “notes.” In other words, before Margaret Cho filmed her own sitcom, network executives “noted” that she needed to lose weight. It was presented as criticism, as an issue, as a business choice. In the months that followed, it resulted in renal failure.
Recently, Cho has been talking more candidly about what happened to her body while she was filming the groundbreaking ABC sitcom All-American Girl, in which she starred from 1994 to 1995. Even though she was portraying a fictionalized version of herself—a sharp, funny, Korean-American comedian—producers told her that she was too heavy to play her own life on screen. She recently stated, “They were like, ‘You’re way too fat to be you,'” on the podcast The Person Who Believed in Me. The longer you sit with this line, the harder it lands.
What ensued was a crash-diet spiral that, in retrospect, appears to have been designed to be harmful. Cho turned to Fen-phen, a once-popular weight-loss concoction that combined phentermine and fenfluramine. The FDA removed it from the market in 1997 after it was connected to heart valve damage. In about two to three weeks, she shed thirty pounds. By all accounts, the executives were happy. Her kidneys weren’t. It wasn’t until she urinated blood that she realized she had kidney failure. She has been candid about this in recent interviews, which makes you realize how much she had to deal with on her own at the time.
The timeline is what catches your attention. The program aired. The program received criticism. For other artistic reasons, not because of what it subjected its star to backstage. In the meantime, Cho was managing a real medical emergency while keeping up a public image and doing press. There’s a feeling that the harm was just seen as a necessary expense that she covered so the network wouldn’t have to.
Fen-phen is not the end of the story. Additionally, Cho has vividly and embarrassingly detailed an incident that occurred during a live stand-up show in which she was mixing diet pills with foods based on Olestra, a fat substitute that is infamous for causing uncontrollable gastrointestinal episodes. Dressed entirely in white, she was almost at the end of her set when something went wrong that could not be stopped or ignored. She stated, “I started spurting orange grease out of my a–hole while I’m onstage,” in an earlier How to Fail podcast episode. A standing ovation was given to her. Through the curtains, she retreated. She was crying and laughing at the same time as she sat in her car, knowing that something had gone horribly wrong with the way she was treating her own body and that she was turning the seat orange.
It’s difficult not to interpret these tales as more than just anecdotes. It makes sense that Cho thought comedy would shield her from Hollywood’s obsession with thinness. “I always had body issues, but because I was a comedian, I thought, ‘Oh, it doesn’t matter,'” she replied. As soon as she appeared in front of the network cameras, that assumption fell apart. Her talent was insufficient cover because the industry wanted what it always wanted.
Cho has joined the larger discussion about GLP-1 drugs and weight loss that is currently taking place, discussing how these more recent medications have assisted her in controlling binge eating and lowering what she refers to as “food noise” during her recuperation. For someone whose past experiences with pharmaceutical weight loss almost ruined her health, it’s a challenging role. She might have discovered something truly helpful this time. It’s also possible that the forces that influenced those early decisions never completely go away—they just take on different forms.
The industry that produced the circumstances is what doesn’t change. When Cho was told she was too overweight to play herself, she was twenty-five years old. When she used risky drugs, damaged her kidneys, and experienced a medical emergency in the middle of a performance, the people in charge seemed to be worried that she might put the weight back on. Perhaps more than any other detail, that one reveals their true priorities.
She continues to process it aloud decades later, making it something that people can both laugh at and feel the weight of. Good comedians do just that. However, allowing the outrage to be completely absorbed by the laughter would be a mistake.
FAQs
Q1: Why did Margaret Cho feel pressure to lose weight?
TV executives told her she was too fat to play herself.
Q2: What drug did Margaret Cho take to lose weight?
She took Fen-Phen, a cocktail later banned by the FDA in 1997.
Q3: How much weight did Margaret Cho lose and how fast?
She lost 30 pounds in roughly two to three weeks.
Q4: What serious health crisis did Margaret Cho experience?
Rapid weight loss caused kidney failure, discovered after she urinated blood.
Q5: What happened to Margaret Cho during her stand-up performance?
Diet drugs and Olestra foods caused an uncontrollable bowel accident onstage.
Q6: How does Margaret Cho approach weight loss differently today?
She now uses GLP-1 medications to manage binge eating during recovery.
