Kate Beckinsale in a backless white floral ball gown with a large bow, white gloves, and a black headband at an indoor event.
Stefanie Keenan / Getty Images Entertainment via Getty Images

Kate Beckinsale Lost Her Mom, Her Stepdad, and Nearly Her Whole Family in a Short Span, and People Online Called Her Weight Loss Proof She’s on Meth

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Kate Beckinsale answered the people calling her weight loss a sign of meth or anorexia with the one fact they skipped over. She’s spent the last year burying almost everyone she loved, and she lives with a disease where eating can be deadly. Then she deleted every post on her Instagram and stepped away.

Beckinsale lives with mast cell activation syndrome, an autoimmune disease she was diagnosed with 16 years ago in which the immune system floods the body with chemicals that trigger allergy-like attacks. In one of her now-deleted posts she explained that eating could actually kill her, which she pointed to when a commenter insisted she “must” eat.

Woman in a strapless floral ballgown with white elbow gloves and large bow details, wearing a black bow headpiece and crystal earrings, posing at an indoor event.
At Bar Marmont in Los Angeles, January 10, 2026, Kate Beckinsale attends the Vanity Fair and Amazon MGM Studios Awards Season celebration, dressed in a dramatic floral ballgown, white bow gloves, and a black hair bow. Photo by Stefanie Keenan / Getty Images.

Her mother, actress Judy Loe, died in July 2025 after a battle with stage 4 cancer. Her stepdad, director Roy Battersby, died more than a year before that. The 53-year-old said she’s lost her entire family in a short span, except her 29-year-old daughter Lily Mo Sheen, whom she shares with ex Michael Sheen.

On August 8 she posted screenshots of the comments telling her she looks “disgusting” and that she’s “anorexic” or “on meth.” She noted that weight loss is one of the first physical signs of grief, and wrote, “I think people might be broken.”

Blonde woman in a strapless floral ballgown with a large white bow at the back, glancing over her shoulder to reveal tattoos and an open back, inside a dimly lit bar.
Turning to reveal her open back and shoulder tattoos, Beckinsale looks over her shoulder at the Vanity Fair and Amazon MGM Studios Awards Season party at Bar Marmont, Los Angeles, January 10, 2026. Photo by Stefanie Keenan / Getty Images.

She compared the speculation to what Chadwick Boseman faced before his 2020 death from colon cancer, a private illness strangers guessed at from his changing appearance. “You don’t know what’s going on in people’s lives,” she wrote. “If you don’t have anything nice to say, maybe don’t say anything.”

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About the author

Nadia Santiago

Nadia Santiago is a writer who lives between the clouds and the coastline, and writes about all the things your heart knows but your mouth can never quite say.