Carnie Wilson sat with down with TODAY’s Hoda Kotb and Natalie Morales on Tuesday, cradling a cup of coffee — and thinking about all the things she could eat with it.
“It will always be a battle,” she said in reference to her lifetime war with her weight and an addictive personality that also led her on the road to alcoholism. “I’m a little up right now,” she went on, talking about her weight. “I go a little down, a little up.”
Her mood was definitely up as she bubbled enthusiastically first with TODAY’s Al Roker and later with Morales and Kotb about her weight, her gastric bypass surgery, her alcoholism, her daughter, Lola, 2½, and her first solo Christmas album, “Christmas With Carnie.”
The ostensible reason for her appearance was the release of the album, which includes a dozen songs. Her favorite, she said, is one made famous by Karen Carpenter, “Merry Christmas Darling,” and when her hosts told her that her rendition of the song sounds like Carpenter, she glowed.
“She’s probably my favorite singer,” Wilson said. “People have said, ‘Carnie, sometimes you sound like Karen Carpenter.’ I couldn’t get a better compliment than that.” While laying down the “Merry Christmas Darling” track, she said, “I tried to channel her.”
Another song, “Warm Lovin' Christmastime,” was written by and performed with her husband, Rob Bonfiglio.
The daughter of Beach Boy Brian Wilson, Carnie Wilson, 39, has been in the public eye for almost 20 years, beginning with the singing group Wilson Phillips, made up of Carnie and her sister, Wendy Wilson, along with Chynna Phillips, the daughter of “The Mamas and The Papas” singers John and Michelle Phillips.
Carnie Wilson began putting on weight and kept at it until she topped out near 300 pounds on a 5-foot-3 frame. In 1999, she underwent gastric bypass surgery, the same procedure Al Roker underwent, and credited it with saving her life.
By 2003, having lost more than 150 pounds, she posed in Playboy.
But after her pregnancy with Lola, she put some of the weight back on. At the same time, she became addicted to alcohol. Asked how she knew she was an alcoholic, she quipped, “It was pretty obvious: falling down — that’s kind of an indication.”
She’s been sober two years now, and, she said, has forged a kind of peace with her fluctuating weight and her self-image. She also has a message to other women battling their waistlines.
“Women are already feeling the pressure with the scale, with the size of the pants,” she said. “I feel like, let’s forget the number. Let’s just get into a health zone that’s comfortable and good for you and not worry about the exact number. That’s what makes us crazy.”
She talks easily about her problems with food and drink. “I’m not ashamed to talk about it,” she said. “A lot of people are in denial, and the first thing is just admitting, ‘I have a problem.’ ”
She said life is good since her daughter arrived.
“It seems like every year it gets better and better. She is a remarkable, spirited little girl,” she said.
Wilson doesn’t pretend that it’s easy or ever going to be. But she understands now that’s not how life works.
“It would be great to say this has been a fairy tale and everything is peachy, but I’ve had ups and downs, and I’ll continue to have them,” she said. “No one is perfect and we shouldn’t strive for perfection.
“For me, it’s an anxiety thing. It’s hard to sit down, to be still. Food is that little buffer I still go to,” she continued.
Now, when she indulges herself, she works out harder to burn off the calories.
“Exercise is the most important thing,” she said. “There’s no cure for the disease. It’s a disease, we need to treat it like that.”