There is no Holiday Gift Guide post today.
Why, you ask?
Well. Because last night I spent the evening watching my twitter feed BLOW UP with hate tweets. And after getting over the initial fear that some crazy person would tar and feather me, I laughed about it. A lot.
I tweeted a comment about a certain reality celebrity being very, very thin – and she saw it. And re-tweeted it. And the entire world now hates me. … or is very interested in me, b/c I have gotten a ton of hits on the site since last night.
In the spirit of full disclosure – I’ll tell you what happened.
Here’s the back story:
- Giuliana Rancic is 5’8″ tall, and weighs approximately 112 pounds.
- April 13, 2009: Giuliana posts a “meal plan” on her official website where she goes into detail about how she eats basically nothing all day.
- February 2010: Giuliana does an interview in which she states that her doctor told her she needs to gain 5-10 lbs in order to conceive. She also acknowledged in this interview that she does not ovulate regularly.
- I believe she attributes this to infertility issues, and does not make the correlation between not ovulating and being severely under weight.
- March 2010: Giuliana claims she gained 7 lbs, per her doctor’s orders, but that she didn’t get pregnant and thus “got angry with the doctor” because she didn’t immediately get pregnant.
- At some point, Giuliana begins in vitro fertilization treatments.
- September 2010: Giuliana gets pregnant, but sadly (honestly, this is very sad) she miscarried at 8 weeks (October 2010).
- November 2010: Giuliana did an interview with a Us Weekly where she said she gets 63 IVF shots per month.
- Note: To the person who told me I should be “ashamed” for revealing such “private and personal” details of this person’s life, I didn’t reveal anything that she didn’t reveal herself in an interview to the TABLOIDS.
- Also, it occurred to me that this person might be under the assumption that I am a personal acquaintance of Giuliana’s, and that I was told something or got knowledge of something in confidence and then “leaked” it. That isn’t true – at all. I don’t know Giuliana Rancic, or her husband Bill. Or any celebrity at all for that matter.
- November 22, 2010: All hell broke loose.
- I tweeted: “@GiulianaRancic gets 63 IVF shots per month!! Why doesn’t she just eat a sandwich”.
- Yes, I know – this was a very mean thing to say. And I have apologized.
- Giuliana SAW the tweet (I know, crazy right?!)
- She re-tweeted it w/ a comment: “Example of how naïve and discusting some people are. RT @TheBlogtini: G gets 63 IVF shots per month!! Why doesn’t she just eat a sandwich?”
- I copy/pasted that right off of Twitter. Apparently, celebrities are exempt from using spell check.
- I proceeded to get lots and lots of hate tweets from Giuliana fans (as well as lots and lots of hits here).
So ok. I probably should have been a bit kinder – or not said anything at all. Giuliana has obviously gone through a lot and is having trouble conceiving, which is very sad and I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.
HOWEVER – the fact remains that her doctor had said she needs to gain weight. It’s my personal opinion that if you aren’t ovulating, all the IVF shots in the world aren’t going to do much if your body isn’t at a proper weight to sustain a pregnancy. Whether or not that is a medically proven fact, I don’t know – because I don’t feel like doing the research for it. BUT – If Giuliana is 112 lbs, then that puts her BMI at 17.0% – and according to the London School of Hygiene and Topical Medicine at the University of London, women who are underweight (BMI of less than 18.5%) are 72% more likely to miscarry than those who are of “normal” weight. {Editorial Note: And I do not feel like getting into a discussion about what “normal weight” is – this is just a quote directly from the linked source above.}
She gained 7 lbs, and that is FANTASTIC. But she will need to gain more to successfully conceive.
Her fans/followers acted as I personally attacked her and said horrible things about her. I didn’t. I simply offered a sentiment (which, again, I admit I never thought she would see) that many people, including: her doctor, Whoopi Goldberg & Perez Hilton have all previously offered.
If I offended Giuliana, that was never my intent since – as I said – I didn’t expect her to see it. But … the fact remains that it is medically proven that being underweight will make it a LOT more difficult to conceive.
So – I regret making a jab at someone about such a personal issue and I shouldn’t have, however, my senseless recommendation to “eat a sandwich” so that she can get her weight up and further assist in her endeavors to become pregnant should NOT have lead to me being attacked by a bunch of randomers who are telling me they “hope something horrible happens” to me. Doing something worse than the original offense isn’t justified. Being meaner doesn’t mean you’ve proven your point or won some kind of award. It just makes you a bigger jerk than the original person. I never wished any ill-will on Giuliana or her family/friends/career and I never would. Meanwhile, people are freaking out because I gave her the same advice her DOCTOR gave her.
To Giuliana Rancic and her family: I’m sorry for my comment. I shouldn’t have made a snarky remark about such a sensitive issue.
To Giuliana Rancic and her family: I’m sorry for my comment. I shouldn’t have made a snarky remark about such a sensitive issue.
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In other news, if I can just make it through the last class of the day, I will have a glorious 5 day weekend. 🙂