Kirstie Alley Once Listed Her Favorite Jenny Craig Foods Before She Became Their Spokeswoman
Many celebrities have endorsed weight loss programs. Oprah Winfrey, Jennifer Hudson and Sarah Ferguson have all been Weight Watchers spokeswomen. The late Kirstie Alley represented Jenny Craig which she used herself. Alley created the 2005 comedy Fat Actress to take control of the narrative, and explained why she was such a fan of Jenny Craig at the time.
Alley was on a Television Critics Association panel for Fat Actress in 2005. At the same time, her Jenny Craig campaign was just beginning so she also addressed questions about her real life weight loss program.
Kirstie Alley liked Jenny Craig before they offered her a job
Jenny Craig provides meals to their clients. As long as you only eat the Jenny Craig food prescribed to you, you’re following the program. Jenny Craig was a good fit for Alley because she already liked their food.
“They called, and it was just funny because I really liked their fettuccini and their chocolate cake for real,” Alley said. “I’m serious, I’m like the perfect poster girl. It’s like the best food I’ve ever eaten. Like, you get little chocolate cakes and stuff with frosting on them, and you get fettuccini and stuffed shells.”
Alley said she used Jenny Craig the first time in the late ‘80s. Cheers producers asked her to lose weight when she was only 135 lbs and that’s how she did it.
“I’ve had a lot of offers, and I don’t know why, but I’ve had a lot of offers since we announced this show to do different programs,” Alley said. “So I had done Jenny Craig and been successful with it right before I did Look Who’s Talking. I lost 14 pounds, and I did Look Who’s Talking.”
Kirstie Alley joked about Jenny Craig commercials on ‘Fat Actress’
Coincidentally, Fat Actress made a joke about Jenny Craig. On the show, the fictional Kirstie Alley is hurting for work and the only job she could get is endorsing Jenny Craig. Alley said they chose Jenny Craig out of all the famous weight loss programs.
“We put it in the show because it was sort of like it could have been any weight loss program,” Alley said. “It was just that instead of getting work and a legitimate movie or a legitimate TV show, it was a weight loss program.”
Changing lifestyle caused weight gain
Alley explained how she reached 207 lbs. by the time she developed Fat Actress. She refuted suggestions that emotional eating was the reason.
I wasn’t doing this to satisfy a depressed feeling. What happened is when Veronica’s Closet went down, I decided to spend a lot more time with my kids. And I also decided that I wanted to do like a spokesperson, you know how I did the Pier 1 deal. I decided I wanted to do a commercial endeavor so I could travel and be with my kids all the time. And I turned into Donna Reed, only she didn’t get fat. I was cooking all the time, I started having tons of company again, and I started doing all the things that I hadn’t been doing when I was doing a series that I didn’t have the time to do. And it just sort of crept up on me I think.
Kirstie Alley, Fat Actress Television Critics Association panel, 2005
