20 Times Famous Women Were Ruthlessly Body-Shamed By The Media
It's no secret that celebrities (especially female celebrities) are intensely scrutinized for their looks.
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So we asked the BuzzFeed Community to tell us about female celebrities who were body-shamed by the media. Here's what they had to say:
Note: Some submissions include discussions about eating disorders.
1.Christina Aguilera
"She gained weight during each of her pregnancies, and the press treated it like a moral failing when she didn't immediately snap back to her 'Genie in a Bottle' days. After her appearance at a Michael Jackson tribute concert, the press could not stop talking about her body and suggested alcohol was contributing to her 'messy' look, going so far as to publish the hotel bar bill for her entire team. Oh, and her feud with Kelly Osborne was raging at the time; Kelly was on Fashion Police and called Christina a 'fat bitch' and worse."
2.Zendaya
"Back at the 2015 Oscars, Giuliana Rancic from Fashion Police infamously said that Zendaya’s locs made her look like she smelled like patchouli oil and weed. So ridiculous!
When you think of body shaming, hair might not be the first thing that comes to mind, but I think it’s an important part of this discussion. Black women have continually been shamed for their hair, whether it’s in school, in the workplace, or on the red carpet."
3.Britney Spears
"When Britney did the first performance after her breakdown, I vividly remember the phrasing that she had ‘ballooned to a size 10.’ BALLOONED to a SIZE 10!!!! I wrote and complained about how those words could have a devastating effect on the young and impressionable girls who would be reading it, but I never got a response."
"Britney even calls people out for it in 'Piece of Me,' singing, 'I’m Mrs. she’s too big now she’s too thin.'”
4.Taylor Swift
"Taylor Swift was body-shamed before, when she was suffering from an eating disorder but didn't publicly state it. People said she looked 'sickly' and 'the kind of skinny that makes girls conscious.' Then, when she took a few years off and worked on herself, she was body-shamed again for gaining healthy weight during the Reputation era. She said that it affected her mental health, too."
"Taylor also mentioned in her documentary that people speculated whether she was pregnant because her tummy stuck out a little. She said that started her downward spiral into her eating disorder. It’s horrifying what the media has done to her."
5.Jessica Simpson
"Jessica got so much vitriol. She had curves, so she automatically got a lot more attention for her body rather than her incredible voice. Later, she gained a bit of weight, and every headline was focused on how she 'ballooned' and 'is out of shape.'"
6.Selena Gomez
"She was photographed at the beach in a bikini by the paparazzi, and everyone went nuts on how much weight she had gained. She has talked about how her chronic illness and her struggles with her mental health are responsible for her fluctuating weight, and I found it disturbing that she had to even explain why she had gained weight in the first place. Like, why are we putting people in a position where they have to give us an explanation for their weight? That is so messed up and rude."
7.Victoria Beckham
"I once read and photographed this short article in the Metro (London):
'Victoria Beckham’s worst fears have come true as she has joined the wrinkly hand club — which also includes Sarah Jessica Parker, Courteney Cox, and Madonna. The 39-year-old surprised onlookers at the Vogue Festival in London on Sunday when she exposed her withered fingers as she adjusted her designer shades. The immaculately turned out Posh showed that style can’t stop the aging process as she joins fellow A Listers in the aged finger club.'
Notice how no men are part of the 'wrinkly hand club'? What is the exact point of this article? To shame women for having hands and for the natural process of aging? Who writes this bullying toxic garbage?"
8.Cameron Diaz
"As a young teen, I vividly remember seeing some random magazine cover with a picture of Cameron Diaz wearing a bikini, bent double so OBVIOUSLY her skin was rolling up around her belly. God knows how long they had to wait for her to contort herself into a position where she looked like she had belly fat. The headline said something like 'Maybe Those Fat Rolls Are What Chased Justin Away.' It's at least 15 years later, but I still remember that stupid tabloid headline every time I lean down to tie my shoes and get the little roly poly.
Not only were they trying to shame a woman for having fat on her body, they were saying it about one of the slimmest celebrities around, AND insinuating that having fat on your body would 'chase away' your boyfriend."
9.Rihanna
"Rihanna is consistently body-shamed because her forehead is 'too big.'"
Rihanna has also been fat-shamed, despite looking gorgeous at every weight. Back in 2017, a sports journalist wrote the now-infamous article titled 'Is Rihanna going to make being fat the hot new trend?' The queen of calling people out put the writer in his place with the perfect meme, but RiRi shouldn't have had to deal with the body-shaming in the first place.
10.Sarah Jessica Parker
"People have been making jokes for years about how she’s aged, that she looks like a witch, that she looks like a 'horse,' etc. to the point that she became a punchline on both Family Guy and South Park."
11.Michelle Obama
"I just remembered that some guy on Fox News said that goddess Michelle Obama could do with 'losing a few pounds' when she was promoting healthy eating in schools. Nearly punched the wall."
12.Kelly Clarkson
"The one that instantly came into my mind is Kelly Clarkson, who was body-shamed so much when she gained weight during her pregnancy. Body-shaming is bad, but body-shaming a pregnant woman is horrible."
13.Tyra Banks
"There was that infamous moment Tyra was blasted for gaining weight in the tabloids, where she was pictured in a bathing suit. She wore the same bathing suit on her show and called out the paparazzi for sitting and waiting for people's worst possible angles and profiting off them. It's disgusting that she was dragged for looking heavier — so what if she had gained weight? — but it's completely abhorrent to think that the paparazzi exploits women's bodies like that to make money."
14.Soleil Moon Frye
"She was so body-shamed and inappropriately sexualized when she became a teenager that she got a breast reduction at FIFTEEN. I was in my twenties at the time, and I remember it broke my heart the way they wrote/talked about her. 'Punky Boobster.' Disgusting, as if having big breasts somehow made her a 'bad person, a dummy, or a slut.' They acted as if she’d done it on purpose to betray them. It was SICK."
15.Alicia Silverstone
"When she played Batgirl in Batman & Robin, the producers would call her 'Fatgirl.' She was criticized by the public as well, despite not being even remotely big."
16.Megan Fox
"She was rudely shamed for her thumbs. I remember watching some celebrity entertainment 'news' show as a kid with my mom, and I was so confused when they said CGI was used for her thumbs in a commercial. 'Toe thumbs' is what they kept calling it. They were really shaming her for being born with brachydactyly."
17.Kate Winslet
"I rewatched Titanic recently and was absolutely enraged thinking back on people saying Kate was 'big' at the time. Feels like it was because she had breasts and was slightly curvy, when at the time it was still popular to have the 'heroin chic' look."
18.Jennifer Hudson
Jennifer was fat-shamed ruthlessly by the media until she lost weight. Then, she was ridiculed and criticized for being too thin. Women can never win!
19.Madonna
"At the start of her career, there were comments about her being 'chubby.' She really wasn't; she had a young, round face, but her body was that of a hard-working dancer. It was utterly ridiculous."
20.And finally, Scarlett Johansson
"Several years ago, a tabloid published a bikini photo of her, obviously captured from a distance, and she had her back to the camera. They were saying how lumpy, fat, and out of shape she was, that she was 'covered in cellulite' and 'over the hill.' It was the most ridiculous thing I'd ever read. Apart from the fact that writing something like that about ANYONE should be illegal, it was moronic because her body is widely considered phenomenal. Just bizarre, stupid, and shameful."
Have you ever been body-shamed? Share your experience in the comments below.
Some submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity.
