Emily Blunt is apologising for fat-shaming a restaurant worker in a recently resurfaced interview that aired more than a decade ago.
In the rediscovered clip that’s been circulating the internet this week, the Oppenheimer star appeared on the The Jonathan Ross Show where she referred to a female server as “enormous,” prompting a wave of backlash from social media users.
Blunt, 40, issued an apology for her “insensitive” and “hurtful” comments in a statement shared with People over the weekend.
“I just need to address this head-on, as my jaw was on the floor watching this clip from 12 years ago,” Blunt told the outlet. “I’m appalled that I would say something so insensitive, hurtful, and unrelated to whatever story I was trying to tell on a talk show.”
She continued, “I’ve always considered myself someone who wouldn’t dream of upsetting anyone, so whatever possessed me to say anything like this in that moment is unrecognisable to me or anything I stand for.”
“And yet it happened, and I said it, and I’m so sorry for any hurt caused. I was absolutely old enough to know better.”
Social media users on X, formerly Twitter, shared reactions to the British actor’s “blantantly fatphobic” comment from the resurfaced footage.
Other X users applauded the star for owning up to her words and apologising.
During the 2012 TV interview, Blunt began recounting her dining experience at a Chili’s restaurant in the small town of Thibodaux, Louisiana, while shooting her film, Looper, which premiered that same year.
“If you go to Chili’s, you can see why so many of our American friends are enormous,” Ross interjected.
“Well, the girl who was serving me was enormous,” Blunt replied. “I think she got freebie meals at Chili’s.”
“Nothing wrong with that,” Ross added.
Blunt went on to share that the waitress recognised her during the meal and asked her what she was doing at the chain restaurant.
“She was like, ‘Are y’all shooting a movie here?’” Blunt recalled to Ross while mimicking the waitresses’ southern accent.
She added: “And I said, ‘Yeah, I’m shooting a film called Looper.’ And she went, ‘Looper?’ And I went, ‘Yeah.’ And she went, ‘Y’all just made that up.’”
The sci-fi action-thriller Looper, also starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Bruce Willis, follows an assassin forced to fight a future version of himself.