Madison Beer has been praised for her perfect response to an internet troll after they claimed she was “getting fatter” in a recent post.
The 24-year-old singer shared a mirror selfie to Instagram on 23 July, in which she could be seen posing in a white babydoll dress. “Lazing on a Sunday afternoon,” she captioned the post.
However, one hater left a body-shaming comment under her post. While their comment has since been deleted, the interaction was captured in a screenshot posted by Pop Base on Twitter.
“Hey madison I’ve noticed that ur legs and arms are getting fatter,” commented the male follower on Instagram. “Please do some cardio because we men only like skinny girls. Ur face is already perfect, but please we love a thin-waisted girl.”
It didn’t take long for Beer to clap back at the body shamer. “I wouldn’t touch you with a 10 foot pole if you paid me a million dollars,” she wrote back.
Although the Instagram user’s account has since been deactivated, people instantly applauded Beer’s expert response.
“She’s a queen for this,” tweeted one fan, while another agreed: “Go get em queen”
“She instantly shut him down,” said someone else. “People are just asking for it sometimes”.
Others took the opportunity to call out body shamers who feel comfortable giving their unsolicited opinion on someone else’s appearance.
“Why do men think it’s acceptable to comment on a woman’s body?” asked one Twitter user, as another wrote: “Why (are) people so comfortable with telling someone how they (sic) body should look.”
Meanwhile, a third fan simply said: “If it’s one thing men always have it’s the audacity”.
Madison Beer has been open about how body shaming comments have negatively impacted her mental health in the past. In an interview with Today last April, the “Dangerous” singer shared how she’s been subjected to “public scrutiny, bullying and harassment” since her rise to fame at 13 years old – when Justin Bieber posted a link to one of Beer’s covers on YouTube.
“I don’t think you should have to tolerate abuse because that’s just something we’ve conditioned ourselves to thinking it’s normal. I don’t think it’s normal,” she said.
Beer also revealed at the time that she’s been “struggling” with body dysmorphia in recent months because she had “so many people impact me so negatively about my body when I was younger.”
“I grew up pretty happy,” the musician recalled. “I thought I had a nice body. But hearing endless comments about how I don’t, it was really, really hurtful to me when I was so young.”
She admitted that she was "restricting herself a lot" when it came to food, adding: “I wasn’t eating as much as I should be.”
While struggling with restrictive eating, she explained how she even saw an online comment that read: “Someone needs to tell her to stop eating and put the fork down.”
“I’m getting to a place where I’m feeling more confident, but it does suck and it is really hurtful when people have no idea what you’re going through behind closed doors,” Beer said.
That same month, Beer revealed that she had contemplated suicide after explicit photos and videos of herself were published on the internet without her consent when she was 16.
Speaking to Call Her Daddy podcast host Alex Cooper, Beer shared how the leaked nudes led her to contemplate suicide twice, as well as ongoing post-traumatic stress disoder and paranoia. “I felt that everyone on the f****** face of this earth would [rather] me dead,” Beer said. “I got an anonymous text, literally like I was in f****** Pretty Little Liars, that was a picture of a computer screen with 50 videos on it.”
The “Selfish” singer explained how she initially blamed herself in the aftermath, and it didn’t take her until much later to fully comprehend what had happened. “The adults around me were telling me this was ‘bad’, and it was going to ‘ruin’ my career,” Beer said. “I didn’t realise until years later that I was the victim.”
“The most difficult part was knowing in my bones that it wasn’t me that was at fault,” she added, “That it was the boy who betrayed my trust that was at fault, but that was also me learning very quickly that men and women get treated very differently.”
If you are experiencing feelings of distress, or are struggling to cope, you can speak to the Samaritans, in confidence, on 116 123 (UK and ROI), email jo@samaritans.org, or visit the Samaritans website to find details of your nearest branch.
If you are based in the USA, and you or someone you know needs mental health assistance right now, call the National Suicide Prevention Helpline on 1-800-273-TALK (8255). This is a free, confidential crisis hotline that is available to everyone 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
If you are in another country, you can go to www.befrienders.org to find a helpline near you.
