American model Tess Holliday recently went viral on Instagram for a video she shared of her shutting down a woman criticizing Tess’ weight in a doctor’s office.
The video shows Tess, founder of “Eff Your Beauty Standards” offering several snappy retorts to the woman’s comments and took off on the platform. It currently has over 144,000 views and has ignited a discussion about how even celebrities can suffer from body shaming.
In the caption to her video, Tess wrote, “I don’t often give myself enough credit, & my energy this year is very much to cut that shit out. Going to the doctor & dealing with someone body shaming me was apparently my tipping point lol, not sorry 👵🏻.”
Tess explains exactly what happened in the office:
“She says, ‘You are so pretty. You have a beautiful face and you have beautiful hair.’ And I mean, I look like this, and my face is covered, but I’m like, ‘Oh, thank you!’ ” Holliday said. “But she couldn’t just leave it there, she then proceeded to tell me, ‘Why don’t you just lose a little bit of weight?’
“Usually when someone says something like that to me, because I have deeply seeded trauma and people pleasing tendencies, I usually say something to kind of placate their diet talk to make them feel a little bit better, I’m usually like, ‘Well you know I work out,’ [or] whatever.
But that particular day, Tess had had enough.
“I looked at her, took a breath and I said, and I still can’t believe I said this — look at me smiling, I’m so proud of myself — I looked at her and I said, ‘Ma’am, I am one of the most famous plus-size models in the world; I think I’m doing okay.’ “
“Then she goes: ‘You know, I just stop eating when I’m not hungry anymore.’ And I just said, ‘Bodies are weird.’ And then I looked at my phone and God bless, I hear Terry the nurse say my name, and I was like, ‘Bye!’
Tess further explains that she’s proud of herself.
“I’m proud of myself. I’m proud of myself for standing up for myself even though she will never get it, and there was no reason for me to like, explain myself in that situation,” she said. “But I’m f—ing proud of myself.”
You can see Tess’ platforms here: Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Twitter.