Emily Ratajkowski Calls Out Journalist for Slut-Shaming Melania Trump

The unabashedly political Emily Ratajkowski wore a pink pantsuit to a NYFW 2017 event. (Photo: Getty Images)
The unabashedly political Emily Ratajkowski wore a pink pantsuit to a NYFW 2017 event. (Photo: Getty Images)

Melania Trump has an unlikely celebrity in her corner. Model, actress, and outspoken body-confidence and feminist advocate Emily Ratajkowski is stepping up to defend the first lady against a slut-shaming attack she claims she recently overheard.

The 25-year-old described the alleged offensive comment in a series of tweets on Monday. “Sat next to a journalist from the NYT last night who told me ‘Melania is a hooker.’ Whatever your politics it’s crucial to call this out for what it is: slut shaming. I don’t care about her nudes or sexual history and no one should,” Ratajkowski wrote. She continued, “Gender specific attacks are disgusting sexist b**lls**t.”

It’s clear that the brunette beauty sticks to her ethical convictions despite her political leanings. Just after Donald Trump was elected president in November, Ratajkowski voiced her opinion on the matter by posting a partially nude photo to her Instagram with the caption, “My body, my choice.” She also urged Democrats not to write off Trump supporters as “stupid,” but rather to examine their own roles in allowing Trump to win the presidency. “Can we please stop calling Americans stupid?” she tweeted. “Maybe we need to start providing better OPTIONS.”

Almost a year ago, the star joined forces with Kim Kardashian to combat rampant criticism the reality star endured for posting her infamous “When you’re like I have nothing to wear” nude shot on Instagram. In response, Ratajkowski defended Kardashian’s right to bare skin by posing topless next to her a few weeks later for a follow-up Instagram shot that included the pointed caption “When we’re like … we both have nothing to wear LOL.” For good measure, both women flipped the bird for the camera.

When we're like…we both have nothing to wear LOL @emrata

A photo posted by Kim Kardashian West (@kimkardashian) on Mar 30, 2016 at 11:57am PDT

In September, Ratajkoski gave an interview to Vogue in which she spoke emphatically about a woman’s right to make her own choices about her body — including the ways she chooses to portray it. “The ideal feminist world shouldn’t be one where women suppress their human instincts for attention and desire,” she told the publication. “We shouldn’t be weighed down with the responsibility of explaining our every move. We shouldn’t have to apologize for wanting attention either. We don’t owe anyone an explanation. It’s not our responsibility to change the way we are seen — it’s society’s responsibility to change the way it sees us.”

Of her right to pose nude on her own terms, she told Women’s Wear Daily, “My response to people saying I post oversexualized images is that it’s my choice and there’s an ownership and empowerment through them. When I take nude photographs, I’m not there for the boys. It’s about owning my sexuality and celebrating it.”

In September, she got some harsh words from Project Runway style guru Tim Gunn, who branded her ultra-revealing dress at a New York Fashion Week event “appallingly vulgar” and “repugnant” while serving as a guest host on E!’s Fashion Police. “Is this all driven by social media?” Gunn asked. “Is this all just about [getting] everybody shocked? And I will tell you, I’m not shocked. I lived through the 1960s. No decade was more shocking than that when it comes to fashion.”

Ratajkowski responded to Gunn’s criticism by sharing a viral illustration by a French artist, who depicted the double standard faced by women the world over for not dressing conservatively enough, and for dressing too conservatively (see: the burkini ban in France). She tweeted, “Western men in 2016: Want to ban women abroad from voluntarily covering themselves at the beach then want women to cover up their ‘vulgar’ bodies at home. Who controls women’s bodies in 2016? It’s 2016. Why keep trying to dictate what women can wear?”

In November, the issue of consent came up in Ratajkowski’s personal life, when photographer Jonathan Leder published a set of limited-edition books using nude photos he’d taken of the then-unknown aspiring model in 2012. Although Ratajkowski consented to the shoot, she did not authorize the publication of the photos. The model stayed mum at first, measuring her words carefully before speaking out about the incident.

She finally tweeted in November, “I’ve been resisting speaking publicly on the recently released photos by Jonathan Leder to avoid giving him publicity. But I’ve had enough. This book and the images within them are a violation.” She explained that she did sign off on five of the hundreds of Polaroids snapped by the photographer during the photo shoot four years ago, but did not authorize publication of any photos beyond that.

“Even if being sexualized by society’s gaze is demeaning, there must be a space where women can still be sexual when they choose to be,” she tweeted back in March. “We are more than just our bodies, but that doesn’t mean we have to be shamed for them or our sexuality.”

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