Ariana Grande took to TikTok on Tuesday to address fan concerns about her body, telling viewers that “there are many different ways to look healthy and beautiful” and urging people to be gentle with themselves and each other.
Grande, 29, spoke directly to the camera in the video — reminding viewers that she was not wearing fake eyelashes or eyeliner and telling them not to “freak out about that now.”
“Personally for me, the body that you’ve been comparing my current body to was the unhealthiest version of my body,” Grande said. “I was on a lot of antidepressants, and drinking on them, and eating poorly, and at the lowest points of my life when I looked the way you consider ‘my healthy,’ but that in fact wasn’t my healthy.”
Grande focused in much of the video on the toll that body-shaming takes, reminding viewers that all people are beautiful and urging them to be “gentle with each other and yourselves.” Grande is currently working on the Wicked film.
“I think we could be, I think we should be, gentler and less comfortable commenting on people’s bodies, no matter what,” Grande said at the start of the recording. “If you think you’re saying something good or well-intentioned, whatever it is — healthy, unhealthy, big, small, this, that, sexy, not sexy — we just shouldn’t. We should really work towards not doing that as much.”
Grande’s video reminded a number of viewers on social media of fellow pop star Selena Gomez’s recent video in which she also addressed concerns and rumors about her appearance — with some users hitting out at the body-shaming culture that they feel prompted the videos.
“Selena gomez and ariana grande shouldn’t have to go on a public platform to explain their weight gain/loss because of abhorrent criticism,” a Twitter user with the account handle @letsmegetsme tweeted. “its nasty, cruel and unfair especially today.”
Grande said in the video that she “shouldn’t have to explain” that different types of bodies are beautiful and should be accepted and that bodies change throughout lives for a multitude of reasons that are not readily apparent to people on the outside. She said she is choosing to address the rumors head on in the hopes that her openness can help change the conversation around bodies.
“You never know what someone is going through,” Grande said. “So even if you are coming from a loving place and a caring place, that person probably is working on it or has a support system they are working on it with.”
