Mike & Molly to Address Marie Claire Blog Post in Thanksgiving Episode

Mike & Molly wants to have the last laugh in the Marie Claire debacle.
The CBS sitcom will make a "tiny nod" in Monday's Thanksgiving episode to the magazine's infamous blog post, "Should 'Fatties' Get a Room? (Even on TV?)," in which sex-and-relationship blogger Maura Kelly said overweight TV characters shouldn't be intimate because they gross her out.

Mike & Molly creator calls Marie Claire blog post "hateful"

"It's a very eloquently put thing that I get to say at the Thanksgiving speech that kind of says everything we feel," star Billy Gardell tells Entertainment Weekly. In the Oct. 25 post, Kelly wrote that she'd be "grossed out if I had to watch two characters with rolls and rolls of fat kissing each other ... because I'd be grossed out if I had to watch them doing anything."

Are you watching Monday's Mike & Molly? Tell us here

The entry received 1,300 comments online, many from readers upset with the article's tone and calling for a boycott of the publication until Kelly was axed, while Mike & Molly creator Mark Roberts called the post "hateful." Marie Claire Editor-in-Chief Joanna Coles later apologized for the post and Kelly has since updated the entry, apologizing for being "insensitive" and coming off as a "bully."

Are Mike & Molly's fat jokes funny?

Gardell admits that the post created a lot of publicity for Mike & Molly, but says he'd rather get noticed for the show's content."Overwhelmingly, people from the Internet came to our side. And not just to our side but to the side of overweight people, which was nice," he says. "Mark Roberts and Chuck Lorre say there is a certain amount of levity that comes with any kind of flaw you have, whether it's being overweight or drinking too much or gambling. ... Comedy is comedy but when you say you hate someone for how they look, then that changes the atmosphere."