Melanie Lynskey Adds Clarity to Past Comments About Being Body-Shamed on ‘Yellowjackets’ Set: “It Was Literally One Time”

Melanie Lynskey added some clarity to her past comments about being body-shamed on the Yellowjackets set. 

In an interview with The Independent, the actor claimed that the incident was isolated and only involved one person. 

“I feel like sometimes it’s been made out to be a cultural thing, but it was literally one time,” she said. 

Lynskey then stated that Yellowjackets co-creator Ashley Lyle wrote her an email addressing the incident. “I’m going to keep it forever,” the actor said. 

“Ashley said how proud she was to have created a show where there is a regular-sized woman who is in a love triangle with two hot guys. She said that if she had seen something like this when she was a teenager, it would have changed the trajectory of her life. She said that they love me, and they love what I look like,” Lynskey recalled.

In a January Rolling Stone interview, Lynskey revealed that she faced body-shaming while filming Yellowjackets, when a member of the production team suggested that she get a trainer to help her lose weight.

“They were asking me, ‘What do you plan to do? I’m sure the producers will get you a trainer. They’d love to help you with this,” Lynskey said. She shared that her co-stars Tawny Cypress, Christina Ricci, and Juliette Lewis supported her and wrote a letter to producers regarding the incident. 

Similar conversations were sparked when the Heavenly Creatures actor appeared in HBO’s apocalyptic series The Last of Us. America’s Next Top Model winner Adrianne Curry tweeted an image of Lynskey with the caption “her body says life of luxury… not post-apocalyptic warlord.” 

Lynskey addressed the talk about her body in a March profile in The New York Times, where she said, “I very much want to be onscreen representing an interesting person who’s not paying attention to what her tummy looks like.” The actor continued, “If there were more people who look like me, then I wouldn’t have to talk about it as much.”

Later, when headlines about the quote began to circulate, Lynskey tweeted, “Very exhausting to do a wonderful thoughtful interview with a writer I respect and then have literally one paragraph spun off into clickbait articles where the headlines resemble absolutely nothing said in the actual piece.”