After Being Shamed for Dress and Underarm Fat, Meteorologist Fights Back
Molly Matott covers the weather on Syracuse, New York’s CNYCentral news stations. (Photo: Facebook/Molly Matott)
A Syracuse, N.Y., meteorologist’s brilliant takedown of a body-shaming viewer is taking the Internet by storm.
Molly Matott, who covers the weather on several local TV news stations, received an email from a woman who claimed she was “not trying to be mean or unkind,” then proceeded to bash Matott’s outfit and body, including her “underarm boob fat, garish jewelry, clashes in color, AND makeup,” adding that when she turned on her television, she was “shaken to the core” by Matott’s look, according to Cosmopolitan.
In the segment, the meteorologist wore a plum-color dress and statement necklace. The innocuous outfit somehow prompted the viewer to request that Matott have “a little decorum and be more understated and conservative in your attire.”
Matott refused to take the criticism lying down and got fired up — while remaining tactful — in her open letter to the viewer on Instagram (which is now unavailable). In it, she says, “My job is to give the best and most accurate forecast in an understandable manner. … I’m sorry you chose to focus on my appearance and ‘underarm boob fat’ instead. Perhaps next time you wish to pen such an unnecessarily nasty email to a television professional, you too remember that less is more.”
Molly Matott’s Instagram has been set to private since this post. (Photo: Instagram)
The weather woman noted that the viewer replied to her public comment, calling her own judgmental words “constructive criticism.” Matott’s shutdown? “Girl bye.”
Other meteorologists have been the subject of viewer bashing in the past.
In 2015, a pregnant meteorologist, Kristi Gordon of British Columbia’s Global News network, shared mean reactions to her attire on the air, “Nowhere on North America TV have we seen a weather reader so gross as you,” she read aloud, as her co-anchors appearance nervous and shocked. “Your front end looks like the Hindenburg and your rear end looks like a brick fill-in-the-blanks house,” Gordon continued in a bravely good-natured tone. Another note asked Gordon to “buy some decent clothes and have more respect for your unborn child.” Her colleagues came to her defense, quipping, “If you’re going to diss us, please learn how to spell!”
And in 2012, a live broadcast by Wisconsin meteorologist Jennifer Livingston of WKTB went viral after the anchor read an email from a weight-shaming male viewer with the subject line “Community responsibility.” The viewer wrote, “Obesity is one of the worst choices a person can make and one of the most dangerous habits to maintain. I leave you this note hoping that you’ll reconsider your responsibility as a local public personality to present and promote a healthy lifestyle.” After Livingston’s appalled husband — a fellow news anchor — posted the passive-aggressive email to his Facebook, “hundreds and hundreds of people have taken the time out of their day to not only lift my spirit, but take a stand that attacks like this are not OK,” Livingston said.
Last month, a Los Angeles meteorologist, Liberté Chan, was shamed by her own colleague Chris Burrous on live TV. The fellow KTLA anchor was responding to viewer hate mail when he handed Chan a jacket to cover up; she was wearing a sparkly black, spaghetti-strapped dressed that revealed no cleavage and hit at a fairly conservative length — a few inches above her knees.
It seems weather reporters are the prime targets for this kind of shaming — probably because their bodies are in full view instead of obscured by a news desk. Possibly the most surprising phenomenon, though, is not that body shaming is reserved strictly for female anchors but that both men and women seem to pile on equally.
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