Margot Robbie Calls Out Old Co-Star’s Backhanded ‘Eat Less’ Gift

A rising Margot Robbie, a smug male co-star, and a “helpful” diet book gift – it sounds like fiction, but it’s just another day in Hollywood.

Margot Robbie is in her mid-30s, Oscar-nominated, a producer, a red-carpet assassin – and still unpacking the time a male co-star handed her a book to quietly suggest she should eat less.

She didn’t name him (frankly, he’s already lost), but the story is a tidy little case study in how casual, baked-in body shaming still hides behind “just trying to help.”

The Moment

In a recent video conversation with her Wuthering Heights collaborator Charli XCX for Complex, Robbie recalled a moment from what she called “very, very early” in her career.

According to Robbie, a male actor she was working with gifted her a book he apparently thought would be… inspirational. The title? French Women Don’t Get Fat: The Secret of Eating for Pleasure, by Mireille Guiliano, first published in the 2000s and described on its Amazon listing as a lifestyle guide to “healthy living” and eating with moderation and joy.

Robbie’s read on it was less poetic. “It was essentially a book telling you to eat less,” she said, adding, “He essentially gave me a book to let me know that I should lose weight.” Her immediate internal reaction: “Whoa, f-k you, dude.”

“He essentially gave me a book to let me know that I should lose weight.” – Margot Robbie

She didn’t say what happened to the book or the co-star, only that it was “really back in the day” and she has no idea where he ended up. Charli XCX, never one to waste a punchline, chimed in with, “Your career’s over, babe.”

The Take

Let’s be honest: this is not just one clueless guy with a paperback. This is Hollywood etiquette, circa forever.

The move – wrapping body criticism in a “gift” – is classic: plausible deniability, a whiff of sophistication (“It’s French!”), and the comforting fiction that it’s about “health,” not about shrinking a woman down to sample size.

Robbie telling this story now, while she’s riding high off Barbie and a buzzy goth-romantic Wuthering Heights press tour, lands differently than it would have ten years ago. Back then, it might’ve been framed as a funny anecdote about how “tough” the business is. Now it reads like an indictment.

Here’s the wild part: the book itself is not some secret Hollywood burn book. Guiliano’s whole pitch, per the publisher and Amazon materials, is moderation and pleasure instead of crash dieting. Women read it in droves in the mid-2000s as an alternative to Atkins and cabbage soup. Used responsibly, it’s just another lifestyle manual.

But hand that same book to a young actress you work with – without her asking for it – and the subtext writes itself. It’s not, “Here’s a thoughtful cultural essay.” It’s, “Here’s why your body is the problem.”

This is how sexism and body policing often show up in the industry now: not as a studio head barking “lose ten pounds,” but as a colleague performing concern. It’s wellness-washed judgment, with a chic cover and a bow.

Robbie, to her credit, doesn’t seem traumatized so much as bemused and done with it. She’s telling the story from the other side – a power player who has produced one of the biggest feminist-in-a-pink-dress blockbusters in history, calmly exposing the nonsense she waded through to get here.

The timing matters too. While she’s out here wearing a replica of Charlotte Brontë’s 175-year-old mourning bracelet on the Wuthering Heights red carpet, leaning into gothic romance and literary drama, we’re reminded that behind every “stunning look” headline, there’s a long history of people treating her body like a group project.

If Barbie was about the absurd expectations placed on women in general, this story is the director’s commentary: an off-camera example of exactly the kind of thing the movie was quietly skewering.

Receipts

Confirmed:

• Robbie described a male co-star giving her a copy of French Women Don’t Get Fat early in her career, saying it was “essentially a book telling you to eat less,” in a video interview with Charli XCX for Complex.
• She said her reaction was, “Whoa, f-k you, dude,” and added, “He essentially gave me a book to let me know that I should lose weight,” as quoted in coverage of the interview published February 10, 2026.
• The book, French Women Don’t Get Fat: The Secret of Eating for Pleasure by Mireille Guiliano, was first published in the 2000s and is described on its Amazon page as an “inspiring take on health and eating for our times,” positioning itself as a lifestyle guide rather than a strict diet manual.
• Robbie has recently been promoting a new adaptation of Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights alongside Jacob Elordi, and made fashion headlines for wearing a replica of Charlotte Brontë’s mourning bracelet at the UK premiere, as reported in February 2026 press coverage.

Unverified / Not said:

• Robbie has not publicly named the male actor involved.
• There’s no on-record confirmation of when exactly the incident took place or on which project they worked together.
• We also don’t know how the actor framed the gift – Robbie is clear on how it landed with her, not on whatever excuse he may have offered.

Backstory (For the Casual Reader)

If you haven’t been following every beat of her career, here’s the quick catch-up.

Margot Robbie, an Australian actress who broke out on TV soap Neighbours, cracked the U.S. mainstream playing Leonardo DiCaprio’s wife in The Wolf of Wall Street. From there came I, Tonya, Bombshell, Harley Quinn in the DC films, and most recently Barbie, which she also produced through her company, LuckyChap. She’s now one of the few women in Hollywood with both marquee power and real behind-the-camera clout.

Charli XCX, the British singer-songwriter known for hits like “Boom Clap” and writing for other major pop stars, has been expanding into film work, including collaborating with Robbie on music tied to Wuthering Heights. Their Complex chat was meant to promote that project – and instead gave us an unfiltered glimpse at what “normal” used to look like for young actresses trying to survive the system.

As for French Women Don’t Get Fat, it became a mid-2000s phenomenon: part memoir, part food philosophy, sold as a chic, European approach to staying slim without fad diets. Millions bought it to rethink their relationship with food. But context is everything – what might be empowering on your nightstand becomes something else entirely when it’s quietly slipped into your hands at work, with your body already under a microscope.

Join the Conversation

When someone wraps criticism of your body in the language of “health” or a supposedly classy gift, do you see it as a teachable moment, a hard boundary, or a sign to quietly exit the relationship altogether?

Sources

• Margot Robbie-Charli XCX video interview for Complex, discussing Wuthering Heights and the book incident (referenced in February 2026 coverage).
• Page Six recap of Robbie’s comments about being given French Women Don’t Get Fat by a male co-star, published February 10, 2026.
• Publisher and Amazon description of Mireille Guiliano’s French Women Don’t Get Fat: The Secret of Eating for Pleasure, originally released in the 2000s.