Gigi Hadid was het beu. Beu dat mensen op social media zich bemoeien met haar lichaam. Het topmodel maakte daarom gisteravond laat een uitgebreid statement aan het adres van haar body shamers die maar niet ophouden haar te betichten van ondergewicht.
'For those of you so determined to come up w why my body has changed over the years, you may not know that when I started @ 17 I was not yet diagnosed w/ Hashimoto's disease; those of u who called me "too big for the industry" were seeing inflammation & water retention due to that,' klonk haar eerste tweet uit een serie van maar liefst zes.
'Over the last few years I've been properly medicated to help symptoms including those, as well as extreme fatigue, metabolism issues, body's ability to retain heat, etc ... I was also part of a holistic medical trial that helped my thyroid levels balance out. Although stress & excessive travel can also affect the body, I have always eaten the same, my body just handles it differently now that my health is better. I may be 'too skinny' for u, honestly this skinny isn't what I want to be, but I feel healthier internally and am still learning and growing with my body everyday, as everyone is,' vervolgde ze.
'I will not further explain the way my body looks, just as anyone, with a body type that doesn't suit ur 'beauty' expectation, shouldn't have to. Not to judge others, but drugs are not my thing, stop putting me in that box just because u don't understand the way my body has matured.'
'Please, as social media users & human beings in general, learn to have more empathy for others and know that you never really know the whole story. Use your energy to lift those that you admire rather than be cruel to those u don't,' eindigde ze haar betoog.
Rake woorden dus, waarbij ze direct bijval kreeg van actrice Ruby Rose en - nooit te beroerd voor wat heisa op Twitter - socialite Chrissy Teigen:
Gigi gebruikte haar socialmediakanalen al vaker om zich uit te spreken tegen body shamers. Zoals deze keer, toen ze juist nog werd beschuldigd van het hebben van te veel curves voor een topmodel:
'I said it in my post—that I am human and try not to read it all the time—but it does get to me,' verklaarde ze die boodschap op Intagram later aan onze collega's bij ELLE.com. 'I think that when you go through something like that, and you're really almost letting it affect what you think of yourself—it was getting to a place where I was almost like 'Should I be here?' And I was like, 'This isn't okay. I shouldn't be questioning doing my job because people are being mean on the Internet,' so I just felt like I wasn't scared to have a voice. Some people might think that it was maybe aggressive, but I just think that I was doing it because I want to stand up for myself. I think that I have the right to have a say because we all do on social media.'
In december 2016 vertelde Gigi voor het eerst dat ze aan de Ziekte van Hashimoto lijdt, een auto-immuunziekte waarbij de schildklier ontstoken raakt. Vlak daarvoor probeerde ze body shamers nog te sussen met een versie van haar verhaal zonder de aandoening te benoemen:
