Kate Winslet slams 'Titanic' body-shaming: 'That's bullying'

A man placing his hands on the waist of a woman with her arms outstretched on a ship in a scene from 'Titanic.'

Dec. 18, 2022 5:39 PM PT

Kate Winslet is so over the capital-D Discourse surrounding the infamous floating-door scene from “Titanic.”

On Friday’s episode of the “Happy Sad Confused” podcast, the Oscar-winning actor addressed the ongoing debate over whether her “Titanic” co-star, Leonardo DiCaprio, could have fit beside her on the scrap of driftwood that saves her character Rose’s life at the end of the 1997 film.

For years, a vocal legion of “Titanic” conspiracy theorists have insisted that DiCaprio’s character, Jack, also could have survived if he climbed onto the buoyant door beside Winslet’s Rose instead of staying in the freezing-cold water after the titular cruise ship capsized.

“You just have to make a joke of it, don’t you?” Winslet told podcast host Josh Horowitz when asked for her take on the scene. “I don’t f— know. That’s the answer ... I don’t f—know.”

The “Avatar: The Way of Water” star added that she has a greater “understanding of water and how it behaves ... than most” — not only because of her extensive experience shooting in water, but also because of her personal experience swimming, paddle-boarding, surfing, kite-surfing, windsurfing and scuba-diving.

“If you put two adults on a stand-up paddle-board, it becomes immediately extremely unstable. That is for sure,” she continued. “If you put two adults and, say, a 7-year-old on a paddle-board ... You can’t do anything. You’ll be tipping. You’ll be falling in the water. ...

“I have to be honest. I actually don’t believe that we would have survived if we had both gotten on that door. I think that he could have fit, but it would have tipped ... and it would not have been a sustainable idea. So you heard it here for the first time: Yes, he could have fit on that door, but it would not have stayed afloat.”

In response to haters who have argued she was “too fat” in the movie, Winslet said, “Why were they so mean to me?” and insisted, “I wasn’t even f— fat.” The 47-year-old actor — who was 19 when she landed the role of Rose in “Titanic” — also reflected on how she would reply to those body-shaming comments now if she could “turn back the clock.”

“I would have used my voice in a completely different way,” she said. “I would have said, ‘Don’t you dare treat me like this. I’m a young woman. My body is changing. I’m figuring it out. I’m deeply insecure. I’m terrified. Don’t make this any harder than it already is.’

“That’s bullying and actually borderline abusive. And now that wouldn’t happen. And if it did happen, a young actor would truly respond in exactly the way I just did. ... This nonsense of commenting on bodies and how women look, it’s getting better, but we’ve still got such a ways to go.”

Additionally, Winslet condemned the commentary surrounding women’s red-carpet appearances — rejecting body-focused terms like “toned” and “svelte.”

“Don’t even say it. We don’t say that about the men.” she said. “It’s such an irresponsible thing to do and it feeds directly into young women aspiring to ideas of perfection that don’t exist ...

“It’s for one night and one night only that we’re in that damn dress, and believe you me, mine comes straight off the second I’m in the car on the way home, and I’m in my pajamas ... eating chips and farting. That’s what we do.”

Earlier this month, “Titanic” and “Avatar: The Way of Water” director James Cameron told the Toronto Sun he had conducted a “scientific study to put this whole thing to rest” and prove “once and for all” that only one of Winslet and DiCaprio’s characters could have made it out of the film alive.

“We have since done a thorough forensic analysis with a hypothermia expert who reproduced the raft from the movie and we’re going to do a little special on it that comes out in February,” he said.

“We took two stunt people who were the same body mass of Kate and Leo and we put sensors all over them and inside them and we put them in ice water and we tested to see whether they could have survived. [Jack] needed to die. It’s like Romeo and Juliet. It’s a movie about love and sacrifice and mortality. Maybe after 25 years, I won’t have to deal with this anymore.”

Kate Winslet condemns ‘Titanic’ body-shaming: ‘Why were they so mean to me?’

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