5 Things You Didn’t Know
THE FUNNYLADY OPENS UP ABOUT LOVE, WEIGHT LOSS AND WHAT’S NEXT
LIFE LESSONS: As a teen, Melissa, 47, waitressed at a nursing home. “When somebody who’s 80 tells you it’s going to be OK, you take that in,” she says. From her mom, Sandy, she learned, among many things, “the world’s a nicer, happier place if everybody has a sandwich!”
MEETING BEN: Melissa met husband Ben Falcone, now 44, when she joined the Groundlings improv theater in LA where he was also a comic. He recalls: “She did these high-energy versions of Midwestern moms and I thought, ‘This is the funniest woman on earth!’ ”
FINDING HER POWER: The two-time Emmy winner doesn’t let sexist comments or bullying get her down: “I’m never going to change things by sitting in my living room bawling,” she says. “This has been a tough chunk of history of women. But at one point I just said, ‘I’m not going to wallow in this anymore.’ I look to the men who have made my life better, and [remember] they’re the norm.”
SIZE DOESN’T MATTER: “I just find it dumb and boring,” she says of the obsession with women’s weight. Melissa has reportedly lost about 75 pounds in the past few years, but an insider tells Closer, “She doesn’t want to be obsessive about it.”
SUMMER FUN: Melissa, Ben and daughters, Vivian, 11, and Georgette, 8, love Disneyland, and “the kids go to different camps — yoga, cooking, swim camps,” says the insider of their summer break.
“The older you are, the wiser, the funnier, the smarter
you are.”