Stars who speak out against body shaming

Many people have been victims of body shaming when their bodies have been criticized or shamed to humiliate or ridicule them. That's why many celebrities have fought against these judgments and stereotypes. Let's take a look at some women who stand up against this mistreatment.

Jennifer Lopez suffered greatly from 'body shaming' at the beginning of her career. "They kept telling me to lose weight, And I was a dancer and I was athletic and even my manager at the time, who I no longer work with, um, was telling me, ‘You need to lose weight. You need to be thinner,'" the actress told E! She continued, "I was like, No, I don’t. If I lose any more weight it won’t be me."

After opposing it, she now says that she is glad that society is more open and accepting of diversity. "It was definitely a fight, and so it’s good to hear that it helped anybody in some way. At the end of the day, I was just trying to be myself without trying to fit into a mold of what everybody else should be," the actress and singer explained in the interview with E!

The singer Billie Eilish, who has been body shamed herself, really hates that people judge women's bodies. So much so, in fact, she even addressed it on her 2020 tour with a video interlude. The lyrics say, "Some people hate what I wear, some people praise it. Some people use it to shame others, some people use it to shame me. But I feel you watching, always. And nothing I do goes unseen...The body I was born with, is it not what you wanted?"

Her interlude ended with comments against our society for "making assumptions about people based on their size." She asked her audience, "Is my value based only on your perception? Or is your opinion of me not my responsibility?"

Beyoncé did the best thing she could have done to fight against the shamers, she wrote a song, and it was a massive hit. "I woke up one day and refused to feel sorry for myself, so I wrote 'Bootylicious,'" she told 'Harpers Bazaar' in an interview.

She continued, "I remember when I started hearing people criticize me after I had put on some weight. I was 19. I was feeling a bit insecure. It was the beginning of me using whatever life handed me and turning it into something empowering to other women and men who were struggling with the same thing."

Ashley Graham is one of the most successful models and an icon for her fight against stereotypes. She defends women's bodies regardless of their size or imperfections, to put an end once and for all to "body shaming".

"This is why I don’t post like the ‘perfect’ Instagram photos. I keep it real and raw constantly because I want [people] to know that there are women with cellulite, back fat, and stretch marks. There are a lot of curvy women, plus-size women, fat women, whatever you want to call them." Graham explained in an interview with 'The Wall Street Journal.'

Lady Gaga has also been criticized for her weight. After the Super Bowl halftime show in 2017, the singer received several comments about her looking a little overweight. However, Lady Gaga responded with a clear message on her Instagram.

She declared, "I heard my body is a topic of conversation so I wanted to say, I'm proud of my body, and you should be proud of yours too. No matter who you are or what you do. I could give you a million reasons why you don't need to cater to anyone or anything to succeed. Be you, and be relentlessly you. That's the stuff of champions."

Jennifer Aniston is another actress who has raised her voice against 'body shaming.' In 2016, the actress published a statement in the 'Huffington Post' in which she wrote, "The objectification and scrutiny we put women through is absurd and disturbing."

Aniston added that this conditioning starts at an early age. "The message that girls are not pretty unless they’re incredibly thin, that they’re not worthy of our attention unless they look like a supermodel or an actress on the cover of a magazine, is something we’re all willingly buying into. This conditioning is something girls then carry into womanhood."

Selena Gomez has also suffered 'body shaming.' During a vacation, the paparazzi took photos of a scar on her leg, the result of a complication when she underwent her kidney transplant operation. People commented about the scar on social networks, making the topic trend.

Through a Instagram post, the actress responded, "The beauty myth - an obsession with physical perfection that traps modern woman in an endless cycle of hopelessness, self-consciousness, and self-hatred as she tries to fulfill society’s impossible definition of flawless beauty. I chose to take care of myself because I want to, not to prove anything to anyone. Wind in her sails."

Singer Adele has been hit with body shaming many times and even now, she thinks it's also sexist to comment on or ask a woman about her body and weight.

In an interview with '60 Minutes Australia,' Adele stated, "I've always been asked questions about my body and my weight and my size and my style and stuff like that, and I totally understand, she continued, adding, 'It's a little bit annoying that men don't get asked that question as much."

Jennifer Lawrence has also joined the campaign against 'body shaming,' and indicated in an interview with 'Harper's Bazaar' magazine, "Somebody told me I was fat, that I was going to get fired if I didn't lose a certain amount of weight."

The actress continued, "They brought in pictures of me where I was basically naked and told me to use them as motivation for my diet...Yeah. I was a little girl. I was hurt. It doesn't matter what accolades you get. I know it'll never happen to me again. If anybody even tries to whisper the word 'diet,' I'm like, 'You can go f--- yourself.'"

Lizzo is another fervent fighter against 'body shaming' and promotes the 'body positive' movement whenever she can. On her social media, Lizzo has addressed the theme by saying, "The discourse is tired. I have seen comments go from ‘Oh, my gosh, I liked you when you were thick. Why’d you lose weight?’ to ‘Oh, my gosh, why’d you get a BBL? I liked your body before’ to ‘Oh, my gosh, you’re so big! You need to lose weight—but for your health!'"

Lizzo then continued by asking her social media followers to recognize that artists don't represent any individual’s ideal beauty standard. "Artists are here to make art," Lizzo said. "And this body is art."

Kourtney Kardashian posted a bikini photo of herself with a full stomach back in 2020, sparking a barrage of comments asking if she was pregnant.

However, she took the time to reply to one of the comments and said on her social media account, "This is the shape of my body. I definitely gained a few pounds over this quarantine time and I love my body and I'm proud of my shape and I'm obviously posting it and this is the shape of my body. I don't think I look pregnant at all. We're all shaped differently, and that's my body, and I'm proud of it so that's how I respond to the negative comments."

Even models get body shamed as well, with Chrissy Teigen being the 'butt' of jokes when a Twitter user created a meme in 2019, body shaming her for not having enough of a butt.

Teigen, used her usual wit to defend herself, "Everyone so used to ass shots and photoshopped instagrams. I've had no ass forever - is this new news to some of you?"