NEED TO KNOW
Kim Coles had the support of her costars in the face of pressure from executives to lose weight.
On the Aug. 6 episode of the ReLiving Single podcast, the actress and her co-host and Living Single costar, Erika Alexander, looked back at an episode titled “Crappy Birthday.” They take Khadijah (Queen Latifah) on a road trip full of mishaps to Atlantic City as they celebrate her birthday.
In one scene where Khadijah sits in the back with the luggage, there’s a comment made about something weighing down the car. The blindfolded character says, “You better not be looking at me,” which the two actresses discuss as a subtle dig over her weight.
“It is a fat joke,” Alexander says.
Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.
Warner Bros Tv/Kobal/Shutterstock
“We didn’t do a lot of that on this show, and I’m grateful that we didn’t do a lot of that on this show because I gained weight every year. And we could have a whole conversation about,” Coles replied. Of the comment, she added, “I’m surprised we let that one go.”
Alexander said that while a few of those jokes did make it into earlier scripts, “Latifah made it really clear, like, ‘We’re not going to be doing that,’ and then they disappeared.”
Coles then revealed, “I would get a call at the beginning of every season to my manager saying, ‘Kim Coles has to lose some weight. She has to lose some weight. She has to lose some weight.’ ”
Coles talked about it with some guy friends, who informed her, “There’s no man in America that would kick any one of y’all out of bed.”
“Which is a really, really crude way to say it, but I think what was beautiful about us is, there were four completely different body types. And we looked like women that everybody knew in our community,” she says.
“But there is an expectation by these suits in an office somewhere of what they think sexy is. And so I had a really hard time as I was gaining weight and feeling as if everybody was staring.”
Coles agreed that Latifah advocated for the end of those jokes, but that didn’t stop executives who “threatened” Coles behind the scenes.
“You won’t remember this, but I told you that they threatened me and said, ‘If you keep gaining weight, we’re going to have to start writing fat jokes.’ And you said, ‘I won’t read those jokes,’ ” she reminded Alexander.
AJ Pics / Alamy Stock Photo
Alexander didn’t recall, but Coles claimed the comments came from an executive to her manager, reasoning, “She wouldn’t be gaining all this weight, and her friends wouldn’t say anything.”
“That was the threat — lose some weight or we’re going to have to start writing fat jokes. And I brought it to you and you said, ‘I won’t read those jokes.’ ”
Alexander said that of their castmates, “No one” would do that to any of them. She continued, “See, that’s — you have to have willing collaborators. But, you know, the sad part is it got in your mind because I do remember that you went on a very concerted effort throughout the series to keep the image that they wanted.”
PEOPLE reached out to FOX for comment.
