Gabourey Sidibe opens up about her weight-loss surgery
“Precious” star Gabourey Sidibe has opened up about her weight-loss surgery for the first time, writing about her experiences in her new memoir, “This is Just My Face: Try Not to Stare.”
Sidibe explained in her book that she tried losing weight naturally for more than a decade before deciding to go under the knife in May 2016. “The surgery wasn’t the easy way out. I wasn’t cheating by getting it done,” she wrote, according to an excerpt published by People. “I wouldn’t have been able to lose as much as I’ve lost without it.”
Sidibe made the decision after she and her older brother were diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes. “I just didn’t want to worry,” she told the magazine. “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.”
“I just didn’t want to worry,” Sidibe, 33, tells PEOPLE of her decision to get laproscopic bariatric surgery after she and her older brother Ahmed, 34, were diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes.
“I did not get this surgery to be beautiful. I did it so I can walk around comfortably in heels,” she wrote in the new book. “I want to do a cartwheel. I want not to be in pain every time I walk up a flight of stairs.”
Sidibe also cautioned that she won’t be getting into specifics when it comes to her weight.
“I have a goal right now, and I’m almost there,” she wrote. “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.”
“I know I’m beautiful in my current face and my current body. What I don’t know about is the next body,” she added. “I admit it, I hope to God I don’t get skinny. If I could lose enough to just be a little chubby, I’ll be over the moon.”