HE’S NUTS! Times critic Alastair Macaulay called “Nutcracker” star Jenifer Ringer fat in a review. (AP)
HE’S NUTS! Times critic Alastair Macaulay called “Nutcracker” star Jenifer Ringer fat in a review.
A mean-spirited critic thoughtlessly called New York City Ballet’s principal dancer fat.
But with the grace of a Sugarplum Fairy, ballerina Jenifer Ringer yesterday stood up to the vision-impaired scribe and replied, “I’m not overweight!”
The 37-year-old Ringer, who battled anorexia as a young dancer, took the high road in reaction to a poison-pen review by The New York Times’ Alastair Macaulay, who wrote that she “looked as if she’d eaten one sugarplum too many.”
“It made me feel bad,” Ringer, who plays the Sugarplum Fairy in the troupe’s production of “The Nutcracker,” told NBC’s “Today” show.
“I really had to tell myself that’s one person’s opinion out of 2,000 people who were there that night.”
Not only has Macaulay not apologized for his jab in the Nov. 28 edition of the paper, he published a Dec. 3 follow-up in which he refused to back down.
“If you want to make your appearance irrelevant to criticism, do not choose ballet as a career,” he wrote.
Ringer said the bully is entitled to his opinion.
“As a dancer, I do put myself out there to be criticized, and my body is part of my art form,” Ringer said. “At the same time, I’m not overweight. I do have . . . a more womanly body type than the stereotypical ballerina.”
Macaulay refused to appear on “Today” and didn’t immediately return messages from The Post seeking comment.
“It’s his opinion,” Ringer said. “He is a critic, and he’s paid to put his opinion in the paper.”
Ringer said ballerinas have to be thin — but not too thin, or the workload will become too much.
“If you’re too thin, really, you can’t do the job,” Ringer said.
A strength of the New York City Ballet, she said, lies in its diversity.
“We have every body type out there, and they can all dance like crazy. They’re all gorgeous.”