Why Wendi McLendon-Covey wasn’t at 'Bridesmaids' Oscars reunion?

Wendi McLendon-Covey gave fans a shock this Oscars season, not for a red-carpet moment, but because she was absent from the long-awaited Bridesmaids reunion.

The 56-year-old actress, who famously played the perpetually irritated Rita in the 2011 comedy, missed Sunday night’s Academy Awards when her former co-stars Kristen Wiig, Melissa McCarthy, Rose Byrne, Ellie Kemper and Maya Rudolph took the stage together. 

The group presented the awards for Best Score and Best Sound, delighting fans 15 years after the film’s release.

Wendi took to Instagram after the ceremony to explain her absence, sharing a candid snap of herself in bed with her head wrapped in bandages. 

“In response to some of the DMs I’m getting: I had a neck lift last week because I’m tired of looking like a melting candle,” she wrote. 

She added there was “no drama” with her co-stars and everything was “fine.”

Fans quickly flooded the comments with well-wishes, including former model and age-positivity activist Paulina Porizkova, who wrote: “Hope you recover easily!”

Meanwhile, the on-stage reunion was met with rapturous applause, with Kristen joking to the audience: “We are so happy to all be here together tonight. I cannot believe that it’s been 15 years… we figured out backstage that means we shot this movie in 1883.”

The film, directed by Paul Feig, was a box-office smash, grossing $289 million from a $32.5 million budget, and earned Academy Award nods for Best Original Screenplay and Best Supporting Actress for Melissa McCarthy.

Fans watching online couldn’t get enough of the reunion, with one tweeting: “It made me so happy to see the Bridesmaids cast together again. They were hilarious.” 

Another suggested: “Ok but what if the cast hosted next year or even just reunited for like SPY 2?”

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