The person who dreamed up a TV series about Kirstie Alley's embarrassing battle with her weight and struggles inside the Hollywood fishbowl might be surprising.

It was Kirstie Alley.

"Actually, the show was my idea," she told the Rocky Mountain News in Saturday's editions. "It was sort of like I could either die — slit my throat, knowing that I could not work for a year or however long it would take to lose the weight — or I could make a series. You know, go with the flow and turn this into something fabulous."

Alley admits friends warned the former star of "Cheers" and "Veronica's Closet" that doing the upcoming Showtime series "Fat Actress" would be show-business suicide.

"I didn't listen. I believe that things will work out when you're honest about something and find humor in situations," she said. "The series is much more than just about coping with being fat. It's about the state of mind of women, while showing how easy it is to sort of prey upon women and their insecurities."