*Gabourey Sidibe underwent weight-loss surgery last year and has opened up about it, as well as her struggle with depression, anxiety and bulimia, in her new memoir, This Is Just My Face: Try Not to Stare, excerpted in the latest issue of People.
The “Empire” actress said she decided to get laproscopic bariatric surgery after she and her older brother Ahmed, 34, were diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes. “I just didn’t want to worry,” the 33-year-old told People. “I truly didn’t want to worry about all the effects that go along with diabetes. I genuinely [would] worry all the time about losing my toes.”
Sidibe said she attempted to lose weight on her own for ten years before opting for the procedure. And in May of 2016, she secretly went under the knife.
“My surgeon said they’d cut my stomach in half. This would limit my hunger and capacity to eat. My brain chemistry would change and I’d want to eat healthier. I’ll take it! My lifelong relationship with food had to change,” she writes in her memoir, due in May.
“The surgery wasn’t the easy way out,” she says. “I wasn’t cheating by getting it done. I wouldn’t have been able to lose as much as I’ve lost without it.”
Sidibe says she has indeed changed her eating habits since the procedure. She’s also working with a nutritionist and boosted her exercise regimen, working out with a trainer, swimming and riding a tricycle around the “Empire” set.
The actress writes about struggling with her appearance since the age of 6. And after her parents — a subway singer (mom Alice) and taxi driver (dad, Ibnou) — split, she battled depression, anxiety and bulimia, which she eventually overcame through therapy.
“It has taken me years to realize that what I was born with is all beautiful,” she writes in her book. “I did not get this surgery to be beautiful. I did it so I can walk around comfortably in heels. I want to do a cartwheel. I want not to be in pain every time I walk up a flight of stairs.”
Ten months after her procedure, Sidibe is still shedding pounds, but she is refusing to divulge the number.
“I have a goal right now, and I’m almost there,” she says. “And then once I’ve got it, I’ll set another. But my starting weight and my goal weight, they’re personal. If too many people are involved, I’ll shut down.”
That being said, she does not want to lose too much weight. “I admit it, I hope to God I don’t get skinny,” she writes in This Is Just My Face. “If I could lose enough to just be a little chubby, I’ll be over the moon! Will I still be beautiful then? S–t. Probably. My beauty doesn’t come from a mirror. It never will.”
Turns out the “Empire” set isn’t the only place Sidibe rides around on a tricycle. Below, she and Harry Connick Jr. take to the streets on three wheels for today’s episode of “Harry”:
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