At the time when it happened, in 2001, Katie Devereaux didn’t think much of it. Or rather, she didn’t think enough of it. She knew she should have, and that it was all very shaming, but it just felt so normal, so fundamentally expected at the time. At first, the incident had shocked her, but she did everything in her power to sweep it under the rug, emotionally speaking.

The “occasion” for her public shaming occurred the day after a particularly grueling shoot for an episode of a show she was key player in, along with three other women. The series had only started to really gain ground with mainstream audiences about a year prior. And while that was a good thing, Katie hadn’t taken into account that with the increased spotlight would also come an increased spotlight on her looks. More to the point, her body. More specific still, the shape of her body. Inherently “pear,” but condemned to be deemed “fat” and “out of place” within the stick-figure-thin climate of the decade. And something else that happened to be emblematic of the decade was a nonstop parade of tabloid headlines posing as “legitimate journalism.” For everywhere one turned, whether it was at the grocery checkout line or the hair salon, there was some magazine or other touting a celebrity’s downward spiral. And usually, that celebrity was a woman. After all, ‘twas the way of the patriarchy to target that gender for being “sick!” or “out of control!,” as many of the yellow or white fonts shouted.

Just as they were shouting at Katie when she walked into a convenience store on the corner of Mulberry to buy something that would “take the edge off.” And no, it wasn’t a bodega. This particular “one-stop shop” had always been very adamant about calling itself a convenience store. Not least of which was because it prided itself on having a wide array of magazines to choose from. In the past, this is what had attracted Katie to the location. But this was before her TV show had become such a runaway success that suddenly put her on a whole lot of magazine covers, regardless of whether she had officially posed for them or not.

And lately, she had found herself landing on a few covers as a “corner photo” headline for being too “overweight,” with some of the allegedly blind items (often just totally made up) stating that Katie’s “weight problem” had gotten so bad that she wasn’t even fitting into her wardrobe for the show anymore, causing a certain Downtown stylist to yell at her about it in front of the crew. Something that, of course, had never happened. But Katie was learning that the masses who were interested in these types of magazines didn’t care about truth, so much as entertainment. A story that could be believable because the magazines in question had already conditioned their readers to view celebrities in a certain light. Fed them a steady diet of lies that had shaped the overall narrative into one that made whatever they claimed a celebrity did seem true. Or “true enough.” Because that’s how the magazines had been painting them all along.

Since Katie was still new to being “painted,” she wasn’t aware that she was being relegated as the “fat girl” of the series, even though she was simply a woman with curves. Not even overly voluptuous ones either. Not anything like what was to come in the future, circa 2010, when a particular “reality star” had fully altered what was deemed not only an “acceptable” body type, but a sought-after one, to boot. And while Jennifer Lopez had pioneered that track, her curves and backside were nowhere near the size of this reality star’s.

So it was that, before this point in time, even if you were a “normal” (read: healthy) weight but you had curves, you were automatically cordoned off into the “large” category. As Katie was quickly finding out. And though she knew she might be at risk for being “paparazzi’d” while she decided to buy a pack of M&Ms to help ease some of her stress and generally reward herself for enduring the hellacious shoot for the episode that just wrapped, she couldn’t resist the temptation. Knew that it was the only thing that could possibly make her feel better that night—and having no idea that the thing she thought would make her feel better was only going to result in her feeling so much worse as a result. And this was because, as she approached the counter to pay, the woman at the register had the nerve to look from Katie to the bag of M&Ms and quite bluntly tell her, “I can’t sell you these.”

Katie looked at her quizzically and said, “What do you mean? Why not?”

The woman then pulled one of the tabloid rags posing as a real magazine from the shelf behind her and held it up to her to remind, “You’re getting too fat. I can’t have it on my conscience to sell you these.”

Katie truly couldn’t believe what she was hearing. For a second, she questioned whether or not it might actually be a nightmare. But no, this was reality. Cold, hard and utterly brutal.

After getting over the initial blow of the comment, Katie calmly replied, “I don’t really think it’s your place to tell me what I can and can’t eat, and I would like to buy these, so can you please just ring it up?”

A line was starting to form behind Katie, and the people behind her might have time to recognize who she was if this little disagreement escalated any further. So when the woman stood her ground and declared, “We reserve the right to sell to whoever we want to. And whoever we don’t want to. Now, if there’s nothing else you’d like to buy, I suggest you leave,” Katie relented.

In near tears as she started to back away, leaving the M&Ms on the counter (though, looking back, she wished she had just grabbed them and ran out), Katie tried to ignore the stares of the other customers who suddenly seemed very interested in what had just gone on. Especially now that Katie looked “oddly” familiar to them. She rushed out before they could fully register that she was “that actress” from TV. When she got outside, as if to add insult to injury, the smell of hot garbage wafted through the summer air. Is this what it was going to be like now? Everyone—even total strangers—assuming ownership over her body? She had no idea what she had signed up for when she thought she wanted to be part of a “hit.” Something that would make her famous.

As the next couple of years went by, and Katie developed an inevitable disorder the more successful the show got, she was still branded as “the fat one” of the bunch. Much later, when she looked back at old photos or watched episodes of the show from that time, she would marvel at how thin she was, a sense of rage briefly overtaking her for allowing anyone to ever make her believe otherwise. All while gleefully polishing off an entire bag of M&Ms. She supposed that was the light at the end of fame’s and “past your prime’s” tunnel. No one cared what you ate anymore. How you looked. She was free from the both the harsh time period and the pressures that came with being a young famous woman in general. So, fuck it, let the M&Ms flow at long last. She would no longer be denied.