The trailer for the third season of Euphoria, released on April 13, ends by highlighting the achievements of its young stars. “Emmy winner Zendaya; Emmy nominee Sydney Sweeney; Oscar nominee Jacob Elordi,” HBO proudly proclaims, before introducing Alexa Demie and Hunter Schafer without any further explanation. The name missing is that of Barbie Ferreira (New York, 29 years old), one of the few actresses from previous seasons who doesn’t appear in this latest one. After “four years of getting to embody the most special and enigmatic character,” she announced she was leaving the show in 2022 on her Instagram Stories, where she currently has 4.8 million followers. The text appeared over a drawing by Schafer of Thunder Kit Kat, the dominatrix alter ego of Ferreira’s character, Kat. “I hope many of you could see yourself in her like I did and that she brought you joy to see her journey into the character she is today,” she said in farewell.
The absence of Ferreira in the new season of Euphoria fueled theories about her alleged clashes with series creator Sam Levinson over disagreements about the direction they wanted Kat to take. The Daily Beast published an extensive report on the filming of the second season, highlighting the actress’s reduced screen time and her absence from the premiere. “Multiple sources within the production company stated that Ferreira left the set on at least two occasions. They also claim that a sex scene featuring Ferreira was cut from the final version of the episode,” the report stated. The official version is that her departure was a mutual decision. “I don’t think [Kat] would have fit in on the show. I don’t know if I would have done her justice, and I think we both knew that I really wanted to be able to stop being the fat best friend. I don’t want to play that role, and I think they didn’t either,” she concluded on the Armchair Expert podcast in 2023.
After those statements, Ferreira has played a twenty-something who starts an online friendship with a man who has the same name as the father who has just abandoned her — in the film Bob Trevino Likes It (2024), based on a true story — a kitchen assistant in the psychological thriller House of Spoils (2024) or a music critic in the romantic comedy Mile End Kicks (released in U.S. theaters on April 17), of which she is an executive producer. The actress, of Brazilian descent, has managed to distance herself from scripts in which discomfort with her weight is inherent to the character, but some fans are now criticizing her for the fact that Ferreira, whom they considered a benchmark of body positivity — the social movement that promotes acceptance and self-love towards all bodies — has accompanied the path to that goal with evident weight loss.
“Because I have a larger body than other people, I get asked about body positivity no matter what I do, and it’s unnecessary. It doesn’t help normalize things. People have always considered me a body positivity activist, but over the years, I’ve found my own version of the movement, and it’s not all about size,” she confessed to Vogue in 2020. The New Yorker still has the same preference for low-cut and tight-fitting looks as she did then, but in the last two years, her public appearances wearing them are usually accompanied by headlines highlighting her “physical transformation,” preceded by adjectives like “brutal,” “shocking,” or “drastic.” Her Instagram posts are filled with fire and heart emojis, but they also elicit comments such as “Ozempic has claimed another victim” or “Her activism towards diverse bodies was only because she had a diverse body and when she no longer had it she made sure to enjoy her privilege.”
Showing off her physique has never been embarrassing for Ferreira. Before becoming known as an actress, she began her career as a model in 2013, at the age of 16, when she received a message from American Apparel on her Tumblr profile encouraging her to audition. “Randomly, I took a not very good quality selfie — I was sick — and sent it in to American Apparel. I heard back from them the next day; it was the weirdest experience of my life,” she recalled in a 2016 interview with W Magazine, in the same year Time magazine included her on its list of the 30 most influential teens. That opened doors for her to work as a photo model for Adidas, ASOS, and Forever 21, but her breakout moment came in 2025 when she debuted as a Victoria’s Secret Angel. “That was just not in my head at all to walk a runway, period, especially the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show, which is the biggest show. I just remember being like, ‘What?’ It took me a minute to process what that meant, because I just was not expecting that at all. And then I got so excited,” she told People before the lingerie brand’s high-profile fashion show.
While the internet is divided between those who praise her and those who accuse her of betraying her supposed cause, she’s enjoying life beyond the series that brought her fame in 2019. “Now I feel free in a way where I get to really do what I want, and I get to produce stuff that I like and be in these stories that I probably wouldn’t have had time for if I were on the show,” she said in a 2025 interview with The Hollywood Reporter. One of those projects is the remake of the horror film Faces of Death, which premiered in the United States on April 10. She plays the lead, an online content moderator who stumbles upon a series of violent videos that recreate death scenes from a movie. The cast also includes Dacre Montgomery — known for Stranger Things — and Charli XCX.
Zendaya, Sweeney, and Elordi have become the most sought-after figures on the red carpet and are considered strong contenders for future awards seasons. Ferreira, for now, feels more comfortable in independent cinema and, lately, in horror — the genre to which three of her last five films belong. “We made a really sickening horror out this weekend,” she said on Instagram regarding the premiere of her new film, where her bloody footwear was a hot topic. “I make independent films that are literally made on a shoestring budget, but they’re great, real stories. I prefer that to being on the most-watched show in the world in the background, without being able to act,” she said Tuesday in a preview of the Not Skinny But Not Fat podcast.
Aside from her film career, she’s just launched a capsule collection with the lifestyle brand For Your Soul, featuring plenty of sweatshirts and tracksuits. It’s billed as “a limited edition inspired by everyday rituals and the little moments people return to,” and Ferreira herself shared her morning rituals to promote it: “I wake up, go straight into the empty bathtub, turn on the tap, and let it fill with me in it. That’s how I wake up.”
The more famous Ferreira becomes, the less she elaborates on her private life in interviews. It’s known that she grew up in New Jersey in a home with Brazilian immigrant women — her mother, her aunt, and her grandmother — without a father figure. “It was tough,” she said of her childhood in Cosmopolitan in 2020, where she recounted how her mother spent her days away from home, juggling her culinary studies with a grueling job at a restaurant, and how her grandmother entertained her by making up stories. As for romantic relationships, the only one she’s been known to have was between 2019 and 2022 with musician Elle Pucket, who is currently part of Gracie Abrams’ backing band. “I love being queer. I love being fat. I love being Brazilian. I love being from New York. [All my identities] are what make me Barbie,” she said in a 2019 interview with the LGBTQ+ magazine Them.
She’s Barbie now, and she’ll never be Kat again. Even so, many remember the revealing speech her character delivers in Euphoria, which could very well summarize the actress’s current situation, regardless of her weight: “Can I be honest with you? I’ve realized that… my whole life, all I’ve ever tried to do is take up less space. I’ve tried to hide from guys who might whisper to their friends when they saw me walk by. I’ve spent my life afraid that people would find out I was fat. But honestly, who cares? There’s nothing more powerful than a fat girl who doesn’t give a fuck.”
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