‘It was going to ruin my career’

TV

By Samantha Ibrahim

Calista Flockhart says relentless eating disorder speculation left her “sleep-deprived” and “depressed” during her years filming legal drama “Ally McBeal.”

The wafer-thin actress, now 59, scooped both a Golden Globe and a SAG Award for her lead role in the smash-hit series, but was dogged by reports she was battling anorexia.

“I loved working on ‘Ally McBeal,’ and it just made it sour,” Flockhart told the New York Times in an interview on Friday.

“I was very sleep-deprived and I was depressed about it,” she added. “I did think that it was going to ruin my career. I didn’t think anybody would ever hire me again, because they would just assume I had anorexia, and that would be the end of that.”

Flockhart is 5ft. 5in.tall, with her weight widely reported to be around 110 lbs.

“Ally McBeal” aired on Fox from 1997 until 2002 and also starred Greg Germann, Jane Krakowski, Gil Bellows, Lucy Liu, Peter MacNicol and Courtney Thorne-Smith.

For the entire five years of filming, the anorexia reports followed Flockhart.

“I had days where I was really hurt and embarrassed and infuriated,” she said. “I was lucky that I had to work. I just put my head down. I always felt like, ‘Calista, you’re a good person, you’re not mean to anybody,’ and I’m confident in that.”

Flockhart told the Times that if “Ally McBeal” aired today, mean-spirited reports about her weight would not fly.

“They call it body-shaming now. I haven’t thought about it in a long time, but it’s really not OK to accuse someone of having a disease that a lot of people struggle with,” the mother-of-one said.

She added that she has “never been in a situation where I have to watch my weight.”

“I just have small bones,” she shrugged. “I just am lucky.”

Back in 2006, Flockhart admitted that the stress of filming “Ally McBeal” left her without an appetite.

“At the time of all that, I was seriously stressed,” she told the Mirror at the time. “I was working 15-hour days on the set and then I was dealing with the end of the show, which was basically my life.

“I started under-eating, over-exercising, pushing myself too hard and brutalizing my immune system. I guess I just didn’t find the time to eat. I am much more healthy these days.”

The actress — who has been married to Harrison Ford since 2010 — is now back in the spotlight with a role in the FX series “Feud: Capote vs The Swans,” appearing alongside Naomi Watts, Demi Moore and Diane Lane.