I Got This (17 page)

Ironically, before that night, there had actually been rumors circulating that I might be pregnant again. Those were quickly put to rest the moment I stepped out on the stage. It was one of the first moments I realized the tables had turned—audiences were still looking at me before listening to me, but for the first time in my career, my image was competing with my talent in a positive way.

I killed the song and gave Whitney every ounce of my blood, sweat, and tears that night. When I finished, the crowd went crazy, standing and cheering for me again for several minutes afterward. It was a wonderful feeling because this time, they were clapping for my art.

I
didn’t realize how special growing up in Chicago was until I stepped out and lived someplace else for a while. At the end of the day, Chicago is my home. In many ways, it represents who I am, where I come from, and where I got started, and it gives me a sense of comfort I don’t get anywhere else on the planet. When I’m in Chicago, I can just relax and be my old self, Jenny Kate. I can shop, walk the streets, and be myself without anyone making an unnecessary fuss. I know the good people of Chicago and they know me. And that familiarity helps me to feel safe, secure, and stay grounded in an otherwise crazy world that isn’t known for those values.

Since David and I come from Chicago, both of our families are there, and family is something that is extremely important to both of us. That is why we made the decision to pack up our baby son
and our three dogs, Oscar, Grammy, and Dream, and move our family back to our hometown in October 2010. I want him to have the same sense of family, tradition, and support that I grew up with. It was definitely time to go home.

Although Liz and Weight Watchers had somewhat prepared me for the physical changes I could expect to see in my body and then how to maintain those changes, no one really told me about the emotional acceptance, or even rejection, of losing weight and all of the emotional changes that would take place. She said that some people have such a hard time adjusting to their weight loss that they actually prefer to go back to the way they used to be by gaining back the pounds they lost and, for many, packing on even more. I am lucky that I have a good support system to help me deal with these feelings.

I knew there would be challenges along the way, but I welcome the opportunity to learn and grow from the experiences. “Bring it on!” That is always my attitude.

First, let me say that I love the way I look. I always have. But I am extremely proud of the hard work I’ve put into my weight loss and the effort I’ve given to getting healthy for my family. Nothing
prepared me for the attention I now get as a result of losing weight. Even people I’m close to have had a hard time accepting my new shape, including my fiancé. If David had his way, he’d keep me dressed in flowing mumus all the time. To be honest, he doesn’t really like it when I wear something that shows off my body. If I try to put on a pair of shorts that he thinks are too short, he freaks out. I think it’s kind of funny because my man makes his living wearing drawers and nothing else. Why is it okay for him and not for me?

David has always been the type of man who tells me what he thinks, that I am beautiful, and that he loves when I don’t wear makeup. He likes me best when I am plain.

Every now and then David will make comments that “his old girlfriend” never dressed in tight clothes or wore a lot of makeup. Of course, he is referring to me before I lost the weight. Sometimes, when we go out to eat, he’ll occasionally offer me bites of whatever he’s having, knowing I don’t want to add the extra Points into my day. Sometimes I think he’d love to stuff me back to my old weight because it was what he was used to.

In all fairness, even I had to get into a new mind-set when it came to my body. I’d go shopping and reach for the same old sizes I’ve always grabbed for. Walter usually stopped me by saying, “That won’t fit you—you’re not a size twelve anymore.” And he was right. Like I’ve said, I always had a shape, but this was the first time in my life that I had a skinny waist and a bra size that was smaller than I’d been since I first grew breasts!

P
eople who I knew before I lost weight started looking at me in a whole new way. My friend and stylist Eric Archibald kept trying to dress me in the same type of clothes as he did before I lost the weight. He wanted to cover me up by putting me in a suit jacket. I felt like I was back on
American Idol.

“I could have worn that jacket eighty pounds ago!” I loudly protested. “From now on, I only want to wear clothes that have a shape to them. That decision is final!” It is a good thing that Eric and I get each other and I know his heart is always in the right place, even if his clothing choice isn’t!

Eric had been a fan of mine since I did
Dreamgirls.
He has the most amazing fashion sense of any stylist I have ever worked with. He gets what I like and what I don’t like and how I feel about my
body. Still, it took him a little while to come around to my new shape because he had grown so protective over my former body size. He used to refuse to put me in tight, form-fitting clothes because he was concerned that I would be too self-conscious wearing them. What I discovered was, when I was heavier, he had his own insecurities about my size that he was inadvertently imposing on me. Honestly, I never felt self-conscious about my body. Never. My decision to lose weight was about being healthy for my son, not about changing my appearance to fit into some preconceived idea of what I should look like. I’d get so mad when Eric refused to bring me figure-flattering dresses because it was his way of telling me he didn’t think I could wear that style. And y’all know I don’t like it when someone tells me I can’t do something. There’s nothing that will make me put that dress on faster than someone telling me I shouldn’t.

When I was picking a dress to wear to a 2011 pre-Oscar party, it seemed everyone had an opinion on whether I should wear the one I chose or not. Granted, it was short—even for me, but I didn’t think it was
too
short.

“You can’t wear that!” Walter said as he shook his index finger at me in total disapproval.

“Why not?” I knew what he was thinking, but every now and then I like to play with Walter to see him squirm.

“It’s too…short!”

We bantered back and forth for a few minutes before I made
him take a picture with my iPhone so we could send it to my sister for her opinion. If Julia said it was too short, I’d agree to change into another dress. If she said it was fine, I had my outfit for the party.

“It looks great,” she texted back, and with her approval I proudly wore that sizzling dress.

What was fascinating about this was that Walter is with me most every day. Even though he was a part of my weight-loss journey, like Eric, he also hadn’t adjusted how he sees me. My sister has mostly seen the changes in my body from afar. Every time she saw a photo of me in a magazine or on the Internet, she saw drastic differences in my shape. I think the distance gave her a fresh perspective that the people closest to me on a daily basis simply didn’t have—yet. They’d eventually come around, but oh, it wasn’t easy. Walter is still trying to dress me like his grandma!

E
ven though I have lost a lot of weight, I am still the same girl who felt self-conscious having to kiss Jamie Foxx in my first scene in
Dreamgirls
. I am still the same Jennifer I always was. I don’t want to go and put everything out there on display just because I’m proud of the work I’ve done to lose weight. When I shot my music video for “No One’s Gonna Love You” from my second album, I worked with a director who wanted to put me in super-sexy skin-baring outfits. She thought I would want to be exposed and show off my body. Now, I had never met this woman
prior to the shoot, so she didn’t know anything about me before making this decision.

Big mistake.

Big.

No one is going to make a decision about what I wear without running it by me first.

When it came time to do the first shot, she walked over to me and said, “Jennifer—for this video, you are so in love with your man that you just want to sleep with him.”

Say what?

So here’s how this goes. I hadn’t been very involved with the planning of this particular video, so I didn’t really know what the full story line was until I got to the set. My record company had hired the production team and created a storyboard with the director without my input. There had never been an instance in my career where I worried that someone would want to put me in a compromising position that didn’t mesh with my image or brand—until
that
day.

The notion of me playing a sex kitten was a real eye-opener. Was my record label actually trying to repackage me and change how people saw me now that I had lost weight?

I had never done anything like that before my weight loss and I wasn’t about to do it now, either. I changed every scene as we went along. I told them I would not cooperate with anything that didn’t feel right to me. I made that pretty tough for everyone, all
in the name of not compromising who I am. I’m not sorry. I am an adult, a mother, and a woman in charge of herself.

I am in control of all decisions that have to do with my image, which means that no one will decide what’s right for me except me. I’m not special. We should all feel this way about ourselves. Sadly, so many women don’t, and in the process they compromise their value to please someone else.

Sure, some people want to step out there and expose themselves by using their body to get ahead. That’s not who I am. I know my value and wasn’t about to taint my image for a record. I didn’t need a sexy body to land the role of Effie, I didn’t need a sexy body to win an Oscar, I didn’t need a sexy body to win a Grammy, and I surely don’t need a sexy body to make a music video.

I may have a new body but I am still the same person.

There are a whole lot of people out there who have applauded me for taking control of my weight and health. I’ve met so many women who have come up to say how much I have inspired them to take control of their health, too. They see my decision as strong and fearless because I stepped out of my comfort zone to reinvent myself. To those women, I want to say thank you. But I didn’t really reinvent who I am so much as how I appear.

When I step out onto the stage, I can see and hear people react.

“Oh, my God—she looks amazing!”

“I had no idea she lost so much weight!”

“She is fabulous. I am so happy for her.” And so on.

I actually open my shows with me behind a curtain in silhouette so the crowd can see me, get their comments in and done, and then I can do what they came there to see—entertain. For the most part, once they’ve checked me out, it’s all good and the show goes on as usual.

But there has been another reaction people have had to my weight loss that came as quite a surprise to me. They say some very negative things. I’m serious. They are rejecting me instead of embracing me for getting healthy. Even the media began writing articles that I had taken my weight loss too far by losing way too much weight. One article accused me of “pulling a disappearing act,” saying that I was “so svelte in my tangerine orange Versace dress at the 2011 Oscars, I nearly vanished when I turned to the side.” Well, at least they didn’t say it was too tight!

Apparently, there is a fine line in the media between being thin enough to succeed and being so thin that nutritionists I’ve never met actually worry about my health in the press. While I wasn’t seeking publicity for my weight loss, it appears there are those who find it necessary to comment about me. Just as I had to go through a transition period, I guess they did, too. The funny thing is, I know my people, the fans who come see my shows, and up until I lost my weight, the audience was always filled with love and support. Now I’ve got people looking at me up onstage thinking they don’t know me anymore. They see a thinner version of the girl they
once knew and appreciated and are now disapproving of me—all because of what I have achieved with my weight loss.