Howard Stern’s not hiring, so Gabourey Sidibe’s mom isn’t worrying

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In the wake of Howard Stern‘s comments Monday about Gabourey Sidibe‘s weight and the future of her career, the best actress nominee’s mom spoke to ‘Inside Edition’ on Thursday, saying pretty much that she doesn’t care what the shock jock says.

“He can see, you can see, I can see Gabby is a big girl,’ said Alice Tan Ridley, Gabby’s mom. ‘She’s a big woman, so what’s wrong with that? She’s not like everyone else in the world.’ She continued to make the point that you don’t have to be ‘thin as a stick’ to act.

Said Ridley: ‘I don’t see him giving jobs out to anybody, so why should we care what he says? He might not hire her, but someone else will.”

(Someone else already has, incidentally, for a movie called ‘Yelling to the Sky.’ And another someone else -- Showtime -- has wrapped up talks that started in October and cast her in ‘The Big C.’ That’s in addition to her ‘America’s Best Dance Crew’ appearance Thursday night.)

Stern, however, on Wednesday had already expanded upon and defended his comments, saying that even though he liked her performance in ‘Precious,’ applauding and rewarding Sidibe might be keeping her from getting what he sees as help she very much needs.

‘I kinda don’t see a difference between what our Artie [Lange] did -- Artie tried to kill himself -- and I feel like this girl -- in a slower way, but nevertheless the same outcome will be -- she’s going to kill herself.”

‘I did enjoy her performance, I have nothing against her.... The girl’s got tremendous problems and she needs help. But anyway, so, we got slammed.’

Maybe he’d been a tad harsh, he said in response to e-mail comments, but he wasn’t about to backtrack: ‘If I’m not pointing out the obvious,’ Stern said, ‘that that girl’s not going to have a lot of parts to play, also that she’s probably going to be dead very soon if she keeps eating this way ... come on ... ‘

‘I’m not saying she’s not wonderful. I’m not saying she’s not a nice person, I don’t know her, she might be a nice person she might also be a monster, I could care less’ -- but, he said, one thing he can see is ‘she’s in a deep crisis, and she needs help badly.’

As this post went live, a majority of those responding to the Ministry’s recent nonscientific online poll still agreed that ‘Howard is just saying what everyone else in Hollywood is thinking.’ But we were there to hear the cheer that went up in the Golden Globe Awards ballroom when Sidibe made her entrance -- so what is Hollywood really thinking? When it comes to the bubbly, confident actress, the message so far has been that size doesn’t matter -- with the issue of health completely disconnected from size.

Is Stern actually the one guy who’s thinking past the surface?

-- Christie D’Zurilla

Related dispatches from the Ministry of Gossip:

PREACH IT! Right, right. Because Howard Stern is the most beautiful man alive Stars galore at the 2010 Academy Awards Governors Ball

Oprah Winfrey, Gayle King celebrate Oscar nominee Mo’Nique’s success with an L.A. luncheon

The ‘Precious’ posse celebrates after sweeping Film Independent Spirit Awards

Skirting danger, sipping cocktails at Women in Film’s pre-Oscar bash

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