Morgan Spurlock, 53, known for ‘Super Size Me’ documentary
Morgan Spurlock, a documentary filmmaker who gained fame with his Oscar-nominated 2004 film “Super Size Me,” which followed him as he ate nothing but McDonald’s for 30 days — but who later stepped back from the public eye after admitting to heavy drinking and sexual misconduct — died Thursday in upstate New York. He was 53.
His brother Craig Spurlock said the cause was complications of cancer. He declined to specify where he died.
Morgan Spurlock was a playwright and a television producer when, during a Thanksgiving visit to his parents in 2002, he saw a TV news report about two girls who had sued McDonald’s, claiming it had misled them about the nutritional value of its hamburgers, fries and sodas, thus causing them to gain significant weight.
“A spokesman for McDonald’s came on and said, you can’t link their obesity to our food — our food is healthy, it’s nutritious,” he told The New York Times in 2004. “I thought, ‘If it’s so good for me, I should be able to eat it every day, right?’ ”
Spurlock hit on an idea for a documentary. He would eat nothing but McDonald’s food for a month, and if a server offered to “supersize” the meal — that is, give him the largest portions available for each item — he would accept.
“Super Size Me” follows Spurlock through his 30day odyssey, splicing in interviews with health experts and visits to his increasingly disturbed physician. At the end of the month, he was 25 pounds heavier, depressed, puffy-faced and experiencing liver dysfunction.
The film grossed over $22 million and helped to spur a sweeping backlash against the fast-food industry — although only temporarily; today, 36% of Americans eat fast food at least once a day.
But the film also came in for significant criticism. Some pointed out that Spurlock refused to release the daily logs tracking his food intake. Health researchers were unable to replicate his results in controlled studies.
And in 2017, he admitted that he had not been sober for more than a week at a time in 30 years — meaning that, in addition to his “McDonald’s only” diet, he was also drinking alcohol, a fact that he concealed from the audience and which probably skewed his results.