Courteney Cox ‘drops two dress sizes’

Courteney Cox is quite clearly struggling to cope with the pressures of motherhood, being a wife and producing a TV show, with sources saying the actress, 43, has dropped from a U.S. size 6 to a size two in recent months.

Courteney's new TV show Dirt, in which she produces and plays Lucy Spiller, an executive editor of a tabloid magazine, has only attracted 5million viewers in the U.S. and production was halted for several months during the writers' strike.

In a cost-cutting exercise, the studio behind Dirt decided to cut season two short after they ran out of scripts due to the strike last year and has decided not to resume production, despite the recent end of the strike.

Cox - famous for playing the neurotic Monica Geller in the popular television sitcom Friends, has admitted she has been too thin in the past, but has denied reports of an eating disorder.

Referring to her time on Friends, she said: "There was a period when I was really, really thin. I thought I looked great - in retrospect, I didn't."

Friends fear Courteney is also feeling the pressure of aging and her plans to have a brother or sister for her daughter Coco.

Last year, Courteney - who's married to actor David Arquette - admitted she hoped to undergo IVF treatment again in the hope of having a second child.

She said: "I'm not really ready right this second, but I'll probably do it one more time We're revving up the engines. I'm only ready 'cos time's a-ticking."

Referring to the aging process, Courteney said: "People who read a magazine can look at the picture and go, 'She looks great for over 40!'

"But guess what? That's not what I look like. Lighting is everything. When you're in your car and you look in the mirror and the sun's beaming in, you're like, 'Wow, times are getting tough.'"

Her eight-year marriage to Arquette was rumored to be in trouble after Courteney admitted they had had counselling sessions together.

She said: "I could see how relationships break up if you don't go, 'What are we doing!?' So we went to a therapist, and he broke it down for us.

"He said, 'Courteney, can you see how David gets embarrassed to have any kind of public fight?' I don't scream, but I have no problem saying what I'm feeling in the moment.

"David's the opposite. So if I need to get something out, I have to say, 'David, can you come talk to me for a minute outside?' Had I done that, [the fights] wouldn't have gotten nearly as big."

By Owen Williams, Feb 19 2008 © Copyright 2008 - Showbiz Spy