Chrissy Metz on Hunting Wives, Love and Being in ‘Control’ of Her Health (Exclusive)

Wherever Chrissy Metz goes these days, she can feel eyes on her — but only because fans are super obsessed with coming up to her to tell her how much they love her.

“I was just crying with these two women on the plane today,” says Metz, who left Los Angeles in 2020 for Nashville, where she’d been spending time recording music. “They had a family member who was ill, and they told me how much they’d loved watching This Is Us as a family and what it meant to them.”

During another recent flight, a woman dropped her a note to say she was taking her son to an eating disorder clinic, and that Metz’s presence on TV had helped him realize his self-worth was more than what he’d been doing to his body.

“I was just sobbing,” Metz, 44, says of the experience. “But I’ve always been the people’s person. People truly love to come up and share everything with me. I think it’s because they know I want to listen. I’ll have a real conversation with you. I’ll cry in the bathroom with you.” She adds, “I know what it’s like to need someone to talk to.”

She’s grateful every day to be able to help others, but in a new, exclusive cover story for PEOPLE, she says recognizing her own self-worth has been a work in progress, despite her becoming a household name and earning an Emmy nomination for starring on This Is Us from 2016 to 2022, and now being a part of The Hunting Wives, undoubtedly the hottest show of the summer.

“I was always the chubby girl, and I was also sort of the only one,” she recalls of a childhood where she often felt “less than” compared to her cheerleaders and horseback rider friends.

“We’d go shopping at Wet Seal, and I wanted to wear the cute shorts and outfits, but all I could fit were the accessories,” she says. “It was really hard.”

She’d turn to food for comfort in moments of need. She’s now aware that it was disordered eating, but at the time, it felt like a friend. “It was my crutch, the love to fill in the holes,” she says. She never drank very much or smoked or did drugs and still doesn’t: “Food was always my thing.” 

A move to Hollywood to try acting was her ticket out of Florida, and, being naturally funny and outgoing, she thought she could carve out a career as the funny girl actress. “I wanted to be the female Jim Carrey,” she says. But it was slow going.

“Every single role was for a tall, skinny blonde. . . . Plus-size girls were either the butt of the joke or couldn’t be attractive. One director told me I was ‘too cute’ to play the side chick,” she says.

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Of course, she then nabbed the role that changed her life — Kate Pearson on This Is Us — and now lives a life so full she can hardly believe it. Now, she’s getting roles that have “nothing to do with pant size.”

She also records songs, has written two children’s books, loved filming The Hunting Wives, and is now filming a new drama opposite Liev Schreiber for Apple+ TV.

She’s also newly in love.

“He’s so supportive and so kind,” she says of her new man, an electrical engineer that she’s been dating for a year and prefers to keep out of the spotlight.

“I’m like, this relationship makes me feel good about myself? What’s the catch?” she says with a laugh. She’s also embarking on a new health journey that includes strength training, meal prepping and focusing on her longevity. “I want to live the longest life possible,” she says of her new attitude towards health.

For more on Chrissy Metz, pick up the newest cover of PEOPLE on stands Friday.

She notes that this doesn’t mean she’s going to suddenly get super skinny. “I know skinniness doesn’t equal happiness. I just want to be health-positive. I never said I wanted to be the face of body-positivity. It’s not that I condone morbid obesity or heroin chic. I condone a healthy body.”

She notes that all that truly matters is whether she feels good about herself as a person at the end of each day, and making sure to count her blessings: “I never thought I’d have all of this.”

The Hunting Wives is streaming now on Netflix.