JANE GREEN: The shameful truth about Barbra Streisand's acid-tongued attack on Melissa McCarthy's weight - and why her cruelty proves WOMEN are always the biggest bullies

Melissa McCarthy rocked up to a Gala in LA this weekend in a glamorous mint green dress and looking newly slender and superb.

Clearly proud of this lighter look, Melissa posted pictures of her and choreographer Matthew Bourne to her Instagram. But one A-lister wasn't prepared to let her have her moment:

'Give him [Bourne] my regards did you take Ozempic?' Barbra Streisand's official account commented under the photo.

Fans rallied behind McCarthy, stunned at the Oscar-winner's cruelty, at her lack of discretion and, frankly, the seeming bitchiness of the question.

Unsurprisingly, the comment was subsequently removed, with Streisand later taking to Instagram again to insist that McCarthy was a 'friend' and that she was only trying to 'pay her a compliment'.

'I forgot the world is reading!' she added.

Melissa McCarthy rocked up to a Gala in LA this weekend in a glamorous mint green dress and looking newly slender and superb.

But one A-lister wasn't prepared to let her have her moment... Fans rallied behind McCarthy, stunned at Streisand's cruelty, at her lack of discretion and, frankly, the seeming bitchiness of the question.

Certainly, it is at least possible that Streisand, 82, was trying to privately message McCarthy and simply made a mistake. How many older people do we all know who are complete Luddites when it comes to technology?

It reminds me of the many times my 80-year-old mother has forgotten to hang up our phone calls and turned to my father with the line still live. 'Jane is completely bonkers,' she said just the other week.

But if Streisand's explanation is to be believed, then she clearly hasn't quite understood that the world has changed. That commenting on weight is simply no longer acceptable – privately or not. That instead we say, 'you look gorgeous', and leave it at that.

To go further not only betrays a lack of compassion, but a lack of good manners.

Of course, in an increasingly packed market, celebrities and those with public profiles must share ever more of themselves online. They have to find novel and often shocking ways to keep followers engaged, encourage fans to watch their latest movies, beg them to buy their books, or even their fancy new jam.

And it's easy then for the rest of us to think we know these people, that we're perhaps entitled to ask invasive questions, pass judgment or seek answers in the comment section that we would never dare demand in real life.

In many ways, we all struggle to feel sorry for the rich and ritzy. They know the game, the deal they've made with the Hollywood devil.

But we are all entitled to some baseline of privacy – and weight in particular is a fragile issue for women, especially those of a certain generation.

Growing up in the seventies – as McCarthy, 53, did – I was raised to believe that anything other than stick-thin was unacceptable.

So-called 'body positivity' didn't exist. Everywhere you looked, front-pages, magazine covers and TV ads declared that diets were the only route to happiness – and we believed it.

I remember my mother putting me on a three-day 'grape diet' in a bid to reduce what she called my 'substantial thighs' and 'rounded stomach'. I was eight years old.

Streisand later taking to Instagram again to insist that McCarthy was a 'friend' and that she was only trying to 'pay her a compliment'. But if her explanation is to be believed, then Streisand clearly hasn't quite understood that the world has changed. That commenting on weight is simply no longer acceptable.

Shame around weight has crippled so many of us. However confident we may appear as adults, insecurities learned as children are always carried with us.

Conversations about weight, about hating our bodies, hating the lack of self-control that leads to binge eating, to punishing self-restriction, are held in private, or not at all.

It is why so many suddenly svelte celebrities won't now admit they're on Ozempic.

I applaud the likes of Sharon Osbourne – who has been radically honest about her recent dramatic weight-loss – but I perfectly understand why so many other famous females have chosen to keep quiet on their use of fat-busting drugs.

Yet Streisand's apparent Instagram slight goes deeper than a mere search for the truth about McCarthy's alleged use of Ozempic.

Her rather un-sisterly comments got me thinking about a recent interpersonal friction of my own.

A few days back, I made a joke on my own Instagram account about having a 'midlife crisis'.

I am currently, and painfully, separated from my husband, and we are embarking on divorce proceedings. There is still deep love there, and friendship, but we have found ourselves on very different paths.

Not that many people know that – we have been dealing with our separation privately. But when I made the flippant joke, I heard from an old friend who I have known, and had thought I loved, for nearly 25 years now.

'So sorry you're throwing your marriage away for a midlife crisis,' she wrote, breezily.

I was staggered at her rudeness, at her lack of compassion, at the fact someone I had thought a friend deemed it acceptable to send such a thoughtless, heartless message.

I wrote back telling her that she had no idea what went on behind closed doors, no idea of the reasons for our separation, and that her sheer rudeness was a stunning betrayal.

It continued back and forth for a while, but there was absolutely no regret from her, no understanding of quite how much she had upset me.

The 'fourth wall' of social media has emboldened far too many bullies, hidden safely behind their keyboards and iPhones, believing it acceptable to pass judgment and spit venom, as if the digital separation makes it any better.

But there is also a woman problem here. Streisand, my now-former friend… women really can be so cruel to other women.

Jealousy is a green-eyed monster indeed – and one which has ruined far too many female friendships. The 'perfect' bodies, the enviable vacations, the tiny portions of expensive salad flaunted in social media posts by women seemingly at war with each other all make it so much worse.

It's not easy being a lady in today's world, when plastic surgery and perfection are held up as constant mirrors.

But the truth is we all share the same insecurities, the same worries that we are not good enough, pretty enough, thin enough. It's time we stopped judging each other and instead recognized that when women hold one another up, we all rise together.