E! correspondent Giuliana Rancic and her husband, Bill Rancic, were on The View a couple of weeks ago as part of an episode focused on fertility. Giuliana, 35, and Bill, 38, have been trying to get pregnant and have chronicled their battle with infertility on their Style Network reality show, Giuliana & Bill. I’ve been watching The View when I can tolerate Elizabeth Hasselbeck’s grating know-it-all personality (as long as Barbara isn’t there they usually keep her in check) and I saw this episode. Giuliana generally strikes me as a very superficial person and I didn’t change my opinion of her after seeing this.

Very thin Giuliana said that the fertility doctor told her that she needed to gain weight in order to up her chances of conceiving. She explained that she’s in a business where appearance matters and that she’d gained a whole five pounds and nothing was happening yet. The girl still looks tiny and would easily look fit with another ten pounds on her frame. Whoopi Goldberg called Giuliana on this the next day on The View, and basically said that if Giuliana wanted a baby she would gain enough weight as the doctor advised. Well, Giuliana didn’t take kindly to those remarks and called what Whoopi said “the most ridiculous statement I’ve heard on that show in a very long time.”

The svelte E! News host says despite putting on five pounds per doctor’s orders, she’s not expecting at the moment.

“I can tell you that I’m definitely not pregnant,” she told me from New York City, where she swore she was snacking on a 3 Musketeers Truffle Crisp bar. “It hasn’t happened yet. Bill and I are in the midst of it all, and we’re trying very hard and hope that we get good news very soon!”

The Giuliana & Bill star also responded to Whoopi Goldberg’s criticism after her appearance on The View (Whoopi had some strong words for Giuliana after she and Bill shared their decision to undergo IVF)…

“When she brought it up the day [I was there], fine, I get it, she’s entitled to her own opinion,” Giuliana said of their heated on-set sit-down.

“But that offended a lot of women because they emailed saying ‘Whoopi made it sound like it was easy to have a kid, like gain five pounds and you’ll be fertile,’ ” she explained. “I did gain weight, and I still didn’t have a kid.”

What really bothered her was the fact that The View host brought it up again the next day, when Giuliana wasn’t a guest.

“I wasn’t there, and she was at the roundtable with all the women, and she was like, ‘It’s not like she’s an actress; she’s on the red carpet, so she should gain the weight,’ ” G explained. “Because I’m a reporter, I’m held to a different standard than an actress? It’s almost like she puts actresses on a pedestal.

“I thought that was the most ridiculous statement I’ve heard on that show in a very long time,” Giuliana continued. “I lost a lot of respect for her.”

That doesn’t mean she’d never return to The View. “Elisabeth [Hasselbeck] is my favorite on the show!” Giuliana told me. “Maybe I’ll go on again once I’m pregnant.”

While Giuliana probably won’t be having lunch with Whoopi any time soon, 3 Musketeers is sponsoring a contest where you can win a trip to L.A. to have lunch with the E! News anchor.

[From E! Online]

I get both sides of this non-controversy. I’ve been on a diet and fitness kick the past few months and am finally at a place where I feel confident about my body. (I’m not even close to Giuliana’s level of slenderness as that’s too little for me. Also I would like to put in a free plug for Weight Watchers because I truly believe it can work for everyone at all levels and ages.) Given how hard I’ve worked to get here, I would be reluctant to gain weight. Once you keep track of everything you’re eating and are aware of how it affects your body, it’s hard to deliberately gain weight on someone else’s orders. My family is telling me it’s time to stop and I’m in the “five more pounds” mindset, which can be hard to break out of. Plus, as many of you have pointed out there is a real bias toward very thin people that can be just as discriminatory as a bias against heavy people. We’re all on our own journeys in life and we shouldn’t judge other people on their bodies. /soapbox

On the other hand, I saw Whoopi make these comments and I agreed with her at the time. She was basically calling Giuliana on her bullsh*t. The girl explained that she gained a whole five pounds and basically said that was all she was willing to gain in order to conceive. Whoopi later said that if Giuliana needed to gain more weight to get pregnant she should do that and not be so hung up on appearances. All that crap that Giuliana is claiming Whoopi implied – that it’s easy to get pregnant if you gain a little weight – is not the case at all. Also, I’ve caught segments of Giuliana’s reality show and she’s incredibly image-focused. In one episode where she threw a surprise party for her husband’s birthday, the first thing she told him during their heart to heart chat was that he was just as good looking now as when she first met him. It wasn’t about what a great, thoughtful guy he was but about how he looked. Does that mean if he gains weight or gets inevitably older she’s going to love him less? Whoopi made a valid point.

Giuliana & Bill in Las Vegas on Feb. 19, 2010. Credit: WENN.

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