‘Biggest Loser’s’ Gina McDonald says she’s misunderstood

America, you’ve got Gina McDonald all wrong.

“The Biggest Loser” contestant said she has shed many tears watching herself on TV this season and said that viewers were only seeing one side of her -- the side that whined, kicked, screamed and pouted like a baby, and committed the most unspeakable crime possible at the ranch: lashing out at Bob Harper. (Worse, she lashed out at Bob even though he has been unwavering in his support of her.)

But this week, she said, America saw the real Gina, the graceful, gracious Southern woman who took it all in sweet stride when she was eliminated after falling below the red line for failing to lose enough weight.

“It wasn’t a shock or disappointment, not really,” Gina insisted, sounding a bit fatigued Tuesday afternoon during media interviews. That “graceful” demeanor and exit -- complimented by Bob -- was the real Gina, she said.

The problem, she said, was that the skill set that served her so well in the real world, where she is an attorney, did not serve her well at the ranch, where she seemed to pick a fight over everything. “I’m a pretty feisty chick,” she said, “pretty aggressive.”

As she started to open up at the ranch and do the hard work needed to figure out why she’d packed on over 100 pounds of fat, all her negative emotions were exposed.

“What America needed to see was my heart,” she said, adding that they saw just that this week on the scale. “It was hard to watch me” on TV, she added. “I cried.”

But she said she believes this was all part of the process she needed to experience. “I finally see what Bob sees,” she said, her pride, her courage, her strength and more.

While this season of “The Biggest Loser” has been blissfully free of drama and bickering, many viewers have found Gina to be one of the least likable players (if not the most unlikable) of the season. It’s worth noting, however, that many of her fellow competitors have rushed to her defense when asked about her. They agree with Gina’s contention that the cameras caught her at her worst moments, not her best.

Gina said the proof of that came this week when the four other competitors helped her pull her sleigh over the finish line.

Gina was fatigued Tuesday afternoon because she had just stepped off a plane in Los Angeles, here for next week’s live finale, when she hopes to win the $100,000 at-home prize. It’s a prize she appears to be the front-runner for, given that she was the biggest loser at the ranch week after week after week.

What do you think about all of this? Has Gina been wrongly portrayed, misunderstood? Would you like to see her win the at-home prize? Who do you think will be this season’s “Biggest Loser”? And, perhaps, the most important question of all: Do you think Jillian borrowed that puffy pirate shirt from Seinfeld?

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