McCarthy Recounts Having Her Identity Stolen

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While Melissa McCarthy delivers her signature humor once again in the upcoming comedy Identity Thief with Jason Bateman, she recalled a personal experience with an identity thief that was anything but laughable when it happened to her.

Although all turned out well for McCarthy in the end, she recalled to ET's Brooke Anderson that she was the victim of an identity theft over a decade ago. As she recounted, the funds in her checking account were emptied by a thief who was writing checks in her name.


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"I didn't have hardly anything on the account, but I needed every cent of it. ...[The thief] got a hold of my account and they were writing checks all over L.A.," she described. "...Then I sat in a bank and cried until security said, 'I think we need you to go outside.'"

Fortunately for McCarthy, she is able to laugh off the incident in light of the recent booming success of her acting career. After her hilarious role in Bridesmaids, the Mike & Molly star has been receiving lead comedy roles left and right.

"I think any actor...[is] just so glad to work 'cause you're chronically thinking, 'I'll never work after today,'" said McCarthy, who began acting professionally in the late 1990s. "It's crazy. I've gotten to do so much fun things and I'm just [knocking on wood] that it continues because I'm having the time of my life."


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Amid her upcoming endeavors, McCarthy is rumored to have a role in The Hangover Part III¸ but she was unable to confirm the speculation during the interview.

McCarthy has become such a desired female comedic actress that her co-star Bateman, who also co-produced the film, decided to swap the gender of her character from a male to a female in order to bring McCarthy on board.

"Anybody that saw 'Bridesmaids' fell in love with her. I did; America did; the Academy did," he said. "The day after I saw that movie, I called our partners there at Universal and said, 'Why don't we change the part of the thief from a guy to a girl and make it Melissa?'"


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Check out McCarthy and Bateman's humorous interview and check them out on the big screen in Identity Thief starting February 8.