Actor Kumail Nanjiani Was Body Shamed on Twitter for Being Too Muscular

From Prevention

To celebrate Christmas, actor Kumail Nanjiani posted a series of photos on Instagram to commemorate a happy holiday spent at home with his wife, Emily Gordon. In one of them, he’s seated in front of a plate of food and a gingerbread house, wearing a tight(ish) shirt that seemingly showed off his muscular physique. Nanjiani famously packed on muscle for his role in Marvel’s upcoming Eternals movie, which he discussed at length with Men’s Health last year.

A week later, the post left the internet up in arms. Literally, this was mostly about his arms (and his face).

On Twitter, a discussion of the reposted picture prompted an explosion of opinions about Nanjiani’s appearance, with many users claiming (baselessly) that he was taking steroids to achieve the look. Many of these commenters also claimed that the studios were wrong to “force” the actor to go through the transformation in the first place.

However, many came to his defense, pointing out a double standard people seemed to have for Nanjiani, who is Pakistani-American, and the reception to muscular transformations that white actors have made for superhero movies.

The chatter about Nanjiani’s transformation is nothing new, especially after he debuted his new physique in December 2019 for his role for Marvel Cinematic Universe’s latest superheroes in The Eternals.

Nanjiani was subsequently featured on the cover of Men’s Health.

Which also included a spread of photos Nanjiani himself was feeling.

And as part of the feature, his trainer Grant Roberts walked Men’s Health through some of his favorite exercises, and he also talked about how intermittent fasting helped him get shredded.

“What’s kept me going to the gym is changing up the workout, finding exercises I like, and sort of mixing things up all the time,” he said about his workout regimen.

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