CNN’s Candy Crowley sports slimmer figure

10th November 2009

CNN’s Candy Crowley sports slimmer figure

posted in Feminist Topics, Rachel, Television & Film |

If watching TV truly kills brain cells, I committed a neural holocaust during the presidential primary and election. If I wasn’t obsessively refreshing FiveThirtyEight for the latest state forecasts, I was glued to MSNBC or CNN’s television coverage of all things political. During my brief affair with David Gergen, Anderson Cooper and Rachel Maddow, I also became a great fan of Candy Crowley, CNN’s award-winning senior political correspondent. Crowley, 60, virtually lived out of a suitcase while covering Hillary Clinton’s bid for the White House and then both conventions, every debate and other stops along the campaign trail. Her commentary and coverage was consistently smart, thorough and as unbiased as a journalist can hope to be. And I’m not her only admirer — there’s even a Facebook group devoted to her by the name, “Candy Crowley is quite possibly the smartest, most articulate woman ever.”

CNN tapped many smart and competent women in their election coverage, but the hoary Crowley stood out to me not only for her decades of experience, but also for her sassy style and the fact that she rocked it as the station’s lone plus-size pundit. So, imagine my surprise when anchor Heidi Collins this morning introduced the gaunt-faced, hollow-eyed, much thinner and older looking correspondent as the same indomitable Candy Crowley. The photo on the left is from February of last year and the image on the right is from this election night clip (fast forward to minute 1:52) from last week.

Candy Crowley weight loss

The internet buzz is speculating that Crowley had weight loss surgery, but neither Crowley or CNN have addressed the issue much less confirmed it — and they shouldn’t have to. Crowley’s profile photo from this 2003 story shows her as significantly thinner and in an undated interview with Rachael Ray, she indicated that she eats a healthy vegetarian! diet, so perhaps the fuller-figured Crowley we saw last fall was but a temporary result of her nomadic lifestyle while covering the election. In any case, I hope that Crowley’s weight loss has been achieved healthily and and that it wasn’t undertaken out of professional pressure to conform to those draconian standards usually thrust on women in the national spotlight. There are enough hungry women on television without adding Crowley to that list.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 10th, 2009 at 11:12 am and is filed under Feminist Topics, Rachel, Television & Film. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

1 On November 10th, 2009, Alyssa (The 40 year-old) said:

I REALLY hope you’re right!!!!! Gads, I am so SICK of Barbie doll news anchors who only know how to read a teleprompter!

(Although, if I may be shallow for a moment, she is ROCKIN’ that new ‘do!)

posted on November 10th, 2009 at 1:12 pm

2 On November 10th, 2009, hsofia said:

I remember her, she really was a pleasure to watch amid all the usual stuff. I hardly ever watch cable (don’t have it), but I did see some of the cable news during the campaigning.

posted on November 10th, 2009 at 1:17 pm

3 On November 10th, 2009, Shannon Russell said:

I had to look up “hoary”. I didn’t know if I should be offended or not. I always liked her, fat or not. She seems cool.

Peace,
Shannon

posted on November 10th, 2009 at 1:42 pm

4 On November 10th, 2009, Rachel said:

@Shannon: I used hoary in the most positive and venerated sense of the word

posted on November 10th, 2009 at 2:11 pm

5 On November 10th, 2009, WendyRG said:

I don’t think Candy looks necessarily older or more haggard, just different.

Certainly, it’s wonderful to see an intelligent person on the air rather than someone who’s just there for her pretty face.

I seem to recall Christiane Amanpour also getting grief from certain brilliant TV viewers–not because she’s fat (which she isn’t) but because they felt she wasn’t pretty enough.

Gimme a break.

posted on November 10th, 2009 at 4:16 pm

6 On November 10th, 2009, Candice said:

As someone who is fat and also named Candy, I’ve followed Ms. Crowley’s career a bit here and there for a while and have always been envious of how she presents herself and speaks, etc – just her whole professional demeanor and journalistic capabilities. She hasn’t succumbed to any kind of “you have to lose weight to be on TV” brainwashing before now, so I hope she hasn’t shifted on that. I don’t see why she would. I agree with the hope that this has been a normal, healthy loss of weight. Many of us go up and down.

posted on November 10th, 2009 at 5:02 pm

7 On November 10th, 2009, emi s. said:

I don’t think she looks gaunt-faced or hollow-eyed in that photo. And of course, we have absolutely no way of knowing anything about her health, either prior to her weight loss or now – she might have been perfectly healthy then and very ill now, or vice versa.

What I find disturbing is the public speculation on her weight – it’s really none of our damn business how she eats or what her body looks like.

posted on November 10th, 2009 at 6:05 pm

8 On November 10th, 2009, Bronwyn said:

I hate the way that any time someone loses some weight people start speculating whether or not they had weight loss surgery (which should tell us something about “diets” as well but whatever)- not only because it shouldn’t matter at all that the person lost or gained weight, but also because it makes people think that WLS is a completely acceptable thing and they start doling out advice to every fat person they see thinking it will solve their “problem”

posted on November 10th, 2009 at 6:44 pm

9 On November 10th, 2009, Rose said:

She probably looks gaunt and hollow eyed because that make up is atrocious. I think they gave her it to make her look perky, but it was a bad choice. She actually kind of looks like she had a face lift to me. Either that or they’re using a softer light or softer filter.
In the first picture she looks very diva, and in the second one she looks rather meek. It might just be that the screen capture was taken at an inopportune time (like when you take a picture of someone in midsneeze). Either it’s an unfortunate picture choice or she lost her mojo. I hope it’s the first because the second would be very, very sad.

posted on November 10th, 2009 at 7:34 pm

10 On November 10th, 2009, Jae said:

She looks much younger now, kudos for her!

posted on November 10th, 2009 at 8:50 pm

11 On November 10th, 2009, Katie said:

i hate how celebrities that are role models and show confidence about their bodies start to lose weight.
e.g. drew barrymore, anne hathaway
but i guess its their choice, and its really none of my business.

…but it doesnt stop me from being angry anyway!!

posted on November 10th, 2009 at 8:56 pm

12 On November 11th, 2009, Rachel said:

I don’t think she looks gaunt-faced or hollow-eyed in that photo.

I agree that she doesn’t look so much so in the photo I posted above, but on TV yesterday while doing a segment on Sarah Palin (which isn’t available online), she did look especially older. So much so that I was shocked to hear that it was her. She probably looks older because fat tends to plump in wrinkles. I was surprised to find that she is 60; she always looked much younger when she was plus-size. It could be that now that she’s lost weight, she looks more her age.

posted on November 11th, 2009 at 9:29 am

13 On November 11th, 2009, JennyRose said:

There is nothing wrong with a woman in the public eye being smart and 60. No doubt everyone here agrees with that statement. We as a nation have become accustomed to having everyone on TV look attractive with other qualifications being secondary. I read about a local anchorwoman who said by a certain age, male anchors have had two face lifts while the women have had 4. Perhaps not literally true but there is pressure to look good and looking good does not include ageing. So the bar is set high, and then it is raised for women.

posted on November 11th, 2009 at 11:38 am