'The Help' Star Octavia Spencer Admits Wearing Three Pairs of Spanx at the SAG Awards

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Octavia Spencer, who won a Screen Actors Guild Award for her supporting role in The Help, Sunday (Jan. 29) didn’t celebrate as long as she would have liked to. She was in too much pain from being squished by her three pairs of Spanx shapewear under her Tadashi Shoji gown.

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This week she told Ellen DeGeneres on her talk show, "I couldn't party that night because I was being pinched in places I didn't know possible."

'I was not a Girl Scout but I try to be very prepared. So I triple Spanxed,' she told DeGeneres. 'It's wonderful because it gives you the illusion of an hourglass shape with the sand kind of spread out.'

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Spanx  -- a Lycra undergarment -- are de rigeur for actresses of all shapes and sizes on red carpets because they create a slender and smooth silhouette. But Spencer's came at a high cost.

Turns out she wasn’t the only one feeling the squeeze. Bridesmaids star Melissa McCarthy was also wearing shapewear. "I ran into Melissa  and said, "Oh my God, Melissa, I'm about to die. My Spanx are killing me." She said, 'I just went to the bathroom and took mine off!'"