‘Designing Women’ Alum Delta Burke Reflects On Doing Crystal Meth To Stay Thin

Delta Burke is getting brutally honest about the vicious fat-shaming she had to endure during the peak of her fame in the ’80s and ’90s.

On an episode of the “Glamorous Trash” podcast released Friday, the former TV star got candid with host Chelsea Devantez about how her body was considered so unacceptable at the time that her show, “Designing Women,” even made it a plot point in several episodes. The show, which launched Burke into fame, ran from 1986 to 1993.

“Now, had I arrived when [Jennifer Lopez] was around and they were welcoming curves, things probably would have been different,” Burke said.

“They treat serial killers kinder than if you put on some weight,” she added. “You put on weight, and it’s the final thing you can really criticize people about. You’re not protected in any way, and you don’t know what’s going on with that person.”

For Burke, the pressure got so intense that she turned to drugs to help maintain a thinner figure, which is a story she touched on in her 1998 memoir, “Delta Style: Eve Wasn’t a Size 6 and Neither Am I.”

Burke told Devantez that her drug use started when she began taking prescribed pills that “made my heart race” but helped her lose weight while attending drama school in London. However, when she returned to the U.S., she discovered the pills were illegal.

She said she stayed relatively clear of drugs until she got her first starring role on the ’80s TV series “Filthy Rich,” and someone on set offered to get her drugs. She asked for the weight-loss drug she used to take in London and got some.

“They were like medicine for me — take them in the morning and you won’t eat,” Burke said.

The drug eventually stopped working as she built up a tolerance, so she was offered crystal meth as an alternative.

“Nobody knew about crystal meth at the time,” she said, noting how she was told to “snort” the drug but instead “put it in cranberry juice.”

She’d drink it before going to work and “wouldn’t eat for five days.” Despite this, Burke said she still received criticism from industry professionals and fans about her body.

“And they were still saying, ‘Your butt’s too big. Your legs are too big.’ And I now look back at those pictures [from that time] and go, ‘I was a freaking goddess,’” she said.

The Emmy-nominated actor admitted she was “emotionally too fragile” to deal with how “incredibly ugly” the conversation around her weight became and recalled people constantly questioning whether she was pregnant. She also said she had one particularly alarming experience when a fan “jerked” her coat open and said, ”‘Let’s see, how fat are you?’”

“I remember on the set, when it got to be really bad and I wasn’t handling it well with a smiling face, my whole body language changed. I would kind of hunch over ... I just tried to disappear,” Burke said.

“Hollywood will mess your head up. And I had always thought, ‘I want to be a famous actress.’ I thought that meant that you would be a famous and well-respected actress, but that’s not what it meant,” she continued. “And the moment I became famous, it was like, ‘Oh no, no, no. This is not what I had in mind at all. I don’t think I want to be this anymore.’ But then it’s too late.”

Although Burke said the experience was painful, she said it was worth it because she met her husband, “This Is Us” star Gerald McRaney, while working on “Designing Women.”

In 2017, Burke and McRaney told People how they got married after McRaney proposed to Burke on their second date.

“We had just gotten together — 1987 was the first time,” Burke said. “He asked me to marry him on the second date, so we were pretty committed!”

“I wasn’t going to let her get away,” McRaney said. “I already had competition. There were people asking her out on dates, and I was going to move in right away.”

The couple married less than two years later, in 1989, and have been together ever since.