Two days before her biggest career moment, Mean Girls star Reneé Rapp was publicly shamed.

Actress, singer, and Broadway star Reneé Rapp has been in the limelight for a while now. 

She was first broadly recognised for her role as Regina George in the Tony-nominated Broadway musical Mean Girls in 2019, which was unfortunately cut short because of the pandemic. 

She then starred in the hit coming-of-age comedy series The Sex Lives of College Girls where she announced her departure before the series ended to pursue her music career and to reprise her role of Regina George in the new Mean Girls film. 

Yet despite her rise to fame, what do you think has been the one constant in Reneé Rapp’s career? Unsolicited comments on her body. 

Watch: Mean Girls trailer (2024). Post continues below.

In a recent interview on the Busy Philipps Is Doing Her Best podcast, Phillips, who plays Rapp’s mum in the new Mean Girls film and her co-host Cassie St. Onge asked the actress if deciding to reprise her role as Regina George had made her nervous at any point.

“The only thing that has ever made me nervous, which I get so annoyed even admitting to because it’s so annoying that this even bothers me, is that ever since I entered the Broadway show, there’s been a lot of conversation about my body compared to Rachel McAdams body.

"It is always such a big topic of conversation and Twitter clickbait," she continued. "I knew it was going to be a thing again, I didn’t think it would bother me but it definitely did and it definitely still does."

She went on to say that the conversation around her body has been a big deal to her for more than five years.  

The conversations she’s referring to are the ongoing criticism and backlash she has faced over her weight since she became famous. 

In an interview with Alex Cooper on the Call Your Daddy podcast, Cooper asked Rapp if she had suffered from an eating disorder while performing on Broadway. 

@callherdaddy TRIGGER WARNING @reneerapp ♬ original sound - Call Her Daddy

“I had an eating disorder starting when I was 10” Rapp replied. She then went on to say that it changed from binge eating to not eating at all when she got into Mean Girls. 

In this same interview, she also said the production team had made the decision to change her costumes in the musical to make them look more conservative because she was 'curvier' than the other women who had played the role before her. 

Rapp faced backlash from this production decision as the public assumed that she was the one who decided to change the costumes. 

Comments on Call Her Daddy podcast TikTok account

In a 2023 interview with The Guardian, Rapp said that people who worked on the production “would say some vile f**king things to me about my body.”

Due to the severe trolling Rapp received from the musical, her parents flew to New York to pull her from the show just before the pandemic hit.

In a now-viral video, Rapp spoke at the 2023 Vogue summit, iconically saying: “The conversation around my body is f*cking stupid… I mean, you’re so obsessed. You are clinically so obsessed. And I get it. I know I look good. You don’t need to talk about it.”  

Rapp has now become an internet icon thanks to her candid and beautifully raw interviews that took place on the press tour for the Mean Girls film. 

Unfortunately, there are still loud people who won’t stop talking about her body. 

She confirmed that two days before the recording of her interview with Busy Philipps, and just before the Mean Girls movie premiere, which was one of her biggest career moments to date, Rapp deleted her Twitter (X) account because she saw another comment about her weight. 

Listen to the author of this article recap Renee Rapp's interviews on The Spill Podcast. Post continues below. 

It’s upsetting to know that the brutal trolling of Reneé Rapp’s body started when she was just 19 years old and has clung to her like a parasite for the last five years of her career. 

The narrative around her weight has also pulled focus from the incredible job she’s done as Regina George. Her portrayal of the character is as good as Rachel McAdams was in the original film, in my honest opinion. 

It’s frustrating to see how there are still people in this day and age who choose to rage about something that has clearly had a dangerous impact on a person's mental and physical health and could potentially drive them to cut their career short. Just as they’re supposed to be reaching their peak. 

Mean Girls is in cinemas now. 

If you want more pop culture takes and opinions by Emily Vernem, you can listen to her on Mondays-Wendesdays on The Spill podcast or follow her on Instagram @emilyvernem

Feature image: Getty.