Actress Melissa McCarthy, who’s gearing up to promote her new buddy-cop film The Heat opposite Sandra Bullock, is responding to weight criticism which made headlines in February.

In an interview with The New York Times, McCarthy finally addressed a review in which The New York Observer’s Rex Reed called McCarthy “tractor-sized” and “a gimmick comedian who has devoted her short career to being obese and obnoxious with equal success.”

McCarthy’s tone reportedly when from cheerful to soft when asked to respond. “Really?” was her first reaction to the comments and then asked, “Why would someone O.K. that?”

She continued, “I felt really bad for someone who is swimming in so much hate. I just thought, that’s someone who’s in a really bad spot, and I am in such a happy spot. I laugh my head off every day with my husband and my kids who are mooning me and singing me songs.”

McCarthy admitted to the Times that, “it may have crushed me” as someone around the age of 20. Now, in a time where she’s raising two daughters and the public eye has “a strange epidemic of body image and body dysmorphia,” she said nasty reviews such as The Observer’s “just add to all those younger girls, that are not in a place in their life where they can say, ‘That doesn’t reflect on me.’ ”

“That makes it more true,” she said. “It means you don’t actually look good enough.”

While we didn’t think McCarthy had to respond, we’re glad she did in a strong way that leads by example.

The Heat opens in theaters June 28.

Thanks to The New York Times for the quotes.