David Foster Blasted For Publicly Fat-Shaming Wife Katharine McPhee When She Was A Contestant On ‘American Idol’: “You Were Fat”

American Idol alum Katharine McPhee‘s marriage to songwriter David Foster has always raised some eyebrows due to their age difference (she is 40, he is 74), but a recently resurfaced video of the pair performing together has riled people up for an entirely different reason. In the clip posted by a TikTok user, McPhee and Foster appear together onstage, and McPhee explains that she met Foster back when she appeared on Season 5 of American Idol when she was 22.

“You may not know we met seventeen, almost eighteen years ago, when I was a little chubby and cheerful contestant on American Idol,” McPhee tells the audience in the clip.

“Look at me smiling,” she says, pointing to a projected photo of herself from the show.

Foster replies, “Oh, yeah, you were fat.”

McPhee shoots back, “I was a little chubby. I was just young,” defending herself as the audience laughs at Foster’s quip.

The barbs continue back and forth during the seemingly scripted banter. “You were at my wedding,” McPhee says, referring to her first wedding to Nick Cokas in 2008, and then adds, “and I was invited to one of your weddings.”

Foster was married to his fourth wife, Yolanda Hadid, from 2011 until 2017. Foster and McPhee tied the knot in 2019.

The “fat” comment incensed many commenters on the video, some of whom were quick to point out that it was especially hard to watch knowing McPhee suffered from bulimia for years before she appeared on Idol.

“Low self-esteem was huge for me,” she once said, adding that she was “this little girl grows up who thinks that being beautiful is the only thing that is important.”

One user commented, “There’s a reason he’s been married 5 times…” while another wrote, “My God. The insecure woman marries the narcissist.” In a different post, a commenter wrote, “Someone tell Yolanda’s ex-husband the proper response would have been, ‘You were/are beautiful. What an ass he is.”

Foster and McPhee perform together frequently and are currently on tour in Asia now.