Need another reason to love Melissa McCarthy?

Probably not — but The New York Times has given us one anyway! In a new profile, The Heat actress responded to an insulting Identity Thief review from Rex Reed, who called Melissa “tractor-sized,” “a female hippo” and “a gimmick comedian who has devoted her short career to being obese and obnoxious with equal success.”

Check out her classy response:

When Ms. McCarthy was asked about the review over lunch in April, her characteristically cheerful tone evaporated. In a softer voice, she said her initial reaction to reading it had been “Really?” and then, she said, “Why would someone O.K. that?”

Without mentioning the name of its author, Ms. McCarthy said: “I felt really bad for someone who is swimming in so much hate. I just thought, that’s someone who’s in a really bad spot, and I am in such a happy spot. I laugh my head off every day with my husband and my kids who are mooning me and singing me songs.”

Had this occurred when she was 20, Ms. McCarthy said, “it may have crushed me.” But now, as a mother raising two young daughters in “a strange epidemic of body image and body dysmorphia,” she said articles like that “just add to all those younger girls, that are not in a place in their life where they can say, ‘That doesn’t reflect on me.’ ”

“That makes it more true,” she said. “It means you don’t actually look good enough.”

Ms. McCarthy was about to say more when the restaurant began a long and very loud test of its fire alarm.

“I imagine that’s my publicist,” she said after a tension-breaking laugh. “The gods didn’t want us discussing this.”

Melissa definitely didn’t need to respond to such uncalled for, insulting crap, but I’m glad she did. Her comments demonstrate she’s endlessly inspiring and positive — a real, authentic role model for women of all sizes and talents.

Her continued success is also good news for those of us who want to see more women on the big screen.

“You don’t really see lady-times taking on the summer schedule,” she said of her upcoming cop comedy The Heat.

Today it was also announced that Melissa will be voicing a character in Dreamworks Animations’ B.O.O. (Bureau Of Otherworldly Operations), ensuring she isn’t going away anytime soon.

If only she had time to make more movies!