Carnie Wilson is getting candid about the darker side of early fame—and it has nothing to do with off-key notes or stage fright. During a heartfelt chat on Billy Corgan’s The Magnificent Others podcast, the Wilson Phillips singer looked back on her early days in the spotlight, when what she weighed got more attention than what she sang.
Back in the early ‘90s, Wilson was just trying to record half an album when a record exec from SBK Records, Arma Andon—who ironically ended up becoming “a good friend”—dropped a comment that still stings.
“But I remember when [the record company] came to one of our recording sessions, very early on, maybe we had recorded half the album, and [the executive] came in and he said to me, ‘What are we going to do about this weight problem of yours?’ Verbatim,” she recalled.
Cue the bathroom dash and the ugly-cry moment. Wilson didn’t just get emotional—she got real.
“I just said, ‘You know, I really you’re so funny and so great. And then you f—ing were an a—— for saying that to me. Why did you do that?’” she later told him.
Thankfully, the exec apologized. “You hurt me so badly when you did that,” she remembered saying. “And he said, ‘I just can’t believe I said that. I’m so sorry.’”
While Andon eventually said sorry, the impact stuck around—especially on set. Wilson shared how she was quite literally hidden in music videos.
“It was always, ‘Hide Carnie in the videos. I had to stay in this light for my chin,’” she said, using her hand to demonstrate how the shadows did the heavy lifting.
Despite being shoved into the shadows, Wilson still found a strange sort of empowerment in being the one who stood out.
“I kind of liked it. It was kind of like a power thing. I was different … and that’s part of the armor I’ve had,” she explained.
But being “different” came at a physical cost.
Reflecting on the video shoot for their 1992 single You Won’t See Me Cry, Wilson revealed just how far she had to go to look “acceptable.”
“I was bleeding from wearing corsets that were sucking me in and trying to make me look as skinny as possible. I had sores on my waist from cinching and trying to look skinny. It was just awful.”
Weight has been a long-time battle for the singer—she underwent gastric bypass surgery in 1999 and later had lap band surgery.
But these days, she’s approaching it all from a healthier place. In April 2024, Wilson told People she gave up sugar and gluten in September 2023, shedding 45 pounds and gaining something even better, peace.
“I feel so much better,” she said. “I treat my body with respect now.”
