There’s no bad blood between Melissa McCarthy and Barbra Streisand. After Streisand, 82, sparked backlash with a since-deleted Instagram comment asking if McCarthy, 53, was on the weight loss drug Ozempic, the Genie star responded to the legendary singer in a May 1 Instagram post, joking, “the takeaway, Barbra Streisand knows I exist.”
“The takeaway, Barbra Streisand knows I exist. She reached out to me and she thought I looked good,” McCarthy quipped in the video, which showed her reading a copy of Barbra: Celebrating an Icon as she wore the same floral dress she donned for the Unfrosted premiere in Los Angeles. “I win the day.”
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McCarthy’s response came just hours after Streisand landed herself at the center of controversy when she jumped into the comments section of the star’s April 30 Instagram post. After McCarthy shared photos of herself and director Adam Shankman attending a Los Angeles gala, Streisand asked under the post, “Give him my regards did you take Ozempic?” The question quickly sparked controversy, with Streisand later deleting the comment, but the interaction was captured by the Comments By Celebs Instagram account.
Streisand later addressed her comment in a statement on social media, telling her followers, “OMG – I went on Instagram to see the photos we’d posted of the beautiful flowers I’d received for my birthday! Below them was a photo of my friend Melissa McCarthy who I sang with on my Encore album. She looked fantastic! I just wanted to pay her a compliment. I forgot the world is reading!”
Amid the commotion, McCarthy told a photographer in a video posted by TMZ, “I think Barbra is a treasure and I love her.”
The Bridesmaids star and Streisand have a years-long friendship, having first met when they performed a duet of “Anything You Can Do” as part of Streisand’s album Encore: Movie Partners Sing Broadway. After the record released, Streisand said McCarthy is “smart, beautiful, clever, and so talented. Just like we sing at the end of the song – I’m her fan,” calling her “the greatest woman comedy star.” McCarthy, meanwhile, told Entertainment Weekly of Streisand, “she’s so who she is. And also, when someone who you think you should be curtseying to keeps eating lunch meat, it really kind of levels the playing field. It was really charming.”