Gwyneth Paltrow's Shallow Hal body double 'nearly starved to death' after movie

22 August 2023 , 12:03

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Gwyneth Paltrow's Shallow Hal body double 'nearly starved to death' after movie

Gwyneth Paltrow's body double for the movie Shallow Hal endured excruciating changes after the movie – including almost starving herself to death.

Ivy Snitzer, 42, was cast as Paltrow's double as the character Rosemary, for a string of close-ups in the movie which was released in 2001. For the movie, Paltrow, 50, wore what is known as a fat suit as the protagonist, Hal (Jack Black) had been hypnotised to fall in love with a woman's inner beauty and didn't acknowledge that Rosemary was overweight.

Now, 22 years later, Ivy has lost a significant amount of weight after the cameras show close-ups of her thighs, arms and torso and has no bad memories of the production. She described Paltrow as "really nice" but while the film was about an overweight character, she didn't see this as a negative thing – as she made jokes about her weight at the time.

Ivy Snitzer has opened up about life after appearing in Shallow Hal (Getty Images)

Ivy played Gwyneth Paltrow's body double for the character Rosemary (Getty Images for DAOU Family Estates)

But Snitzer, who now runs an insurance firm has spoken of the toll the movie took on her, including one viewer discovering her personal address and mailing her diet pills. But in a heartbreaking admission, the former actress admitted she almost starved herself to death.

In 2003, she underwent surgery to have a gastric band fitted, reducing the size of her stomach and restricting what she could and couldn't eat. However, things went from bad to worse as the band slipped not long after, as she told The Guardian: "I got a torsion – like dogs get and then die."

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Ivy had no health insurance and ended up taking up a job in Beverly Hills which later supplied her with health insurance after she successfully passed her probation period. For three months, she wasn't able to consume anything which was thicker than water and was constantly drinking sports drinks and nutritional shakes that she had watered down.

Ivy's body was used in a string of scenes for the movie (Splash)

"I was so thin you could see my teeth through my face and my skin was all grey," she told the outlet. But her ordeal meant that Ivy became so malnourished that medical staff were not able to remove her band and instead inserted a catheter in order to provide her with liquid nutrition.

Whenever Ivy had finished work for the day, she had to hook herself up to an intravenous (IV) drip of fluids in order to "not die". When asked by the outlet why she had the weight loss surgery, Ivy responded: "I was supposed to, if you're fat, you're supposed to try to not be." Following her initial complications, medical staff later performed a gastric bypass operation and removed parts of her stomach, which means she can no longer eat and drink at the same time.

The NHS states that weight loss surgery can carry a string of complications, which can be extremely serious. These include blood clots, a leak in the gut, the gastric band slipping out of place and a risk of dying.

For help and support on eating disorders contact Beat Eating Disorders on 0808 801 0677.

Daniel Bird