Voices: It’s not just Ariana Grande – so-called fans need to stop

Ariana Grande has addressed fan concerns over her body, but of course it shouldn’t have to get to that point.

The Grammy-winning singer recently took to TikTok to condemn bodyshaming, reminding her followers that “there are many different ways to look healthy and beautiful” and urging them to be a little less comfortable commenting on people’s appearances as a whole.

The candid video was a rare moment from Grande, who’s been holed up in London for the past few months while filming the movie musical adaptation of Wicked. But even before the “Thank U, Next” singer was cast as Glinda The Good Witch, Grande often strayed away from acknowledging negative comments about her body, almost not to give them any life. In fact, she wrote in tiny text over her TikTok video: “You’ve talked a lot about [my body] over the past decade or longer so I’d like to join in this time.”

What was the straw that broke the camel’s back?

Perhaps it was fellow child star, Selena Gomez, similarly going on TikTok just two months ago responding to body-shamers, after they began endlessly commenting on recent changes to her weight. Or acting veteran Melanie Lynskey being – ridiculously – told by an America’s Next Top Model alum that her character’s body type in The Last of Us doesn’t fit that of a post-apocalyptic world. Or Lizzo, time and time again, reminding others that the discourse around bodies is officially tired.

Ariana Grande spoke directly to the camera in her video, almost as if she was addressing her fans personally – fans who have said they’re worried that she looks too thin, or that she appears more unhealthy now than she did when she was younger. “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.”

Ariana Grande said it best herself, that we should be “gentle with each other and yourselves,” and I’m sure I’m not the only one that’s had to remind themselves of this daily. To compare someone’s body to the one they had in their late teens or early 20s is not only regressive, but it negates the fact that women’s bodies are constantly changing, often without our control. Second puberty, while not an actual medical term, is a slang term women often attribute to the period of life, from as early as their mid-20s to late 30s, in which they experience puberty-like symptoms: weight fluctuation, adult acne, hormonal shifts, and significant mental health changes. Like many people my age, I recently learned about this phenomenon on social media, where women have shared that they too have come to the realisation that their current size will never be the same as the one they had when they were considered their “most healthy”. So, of course Ariana Grande’s body won’t be the same as it was when she starred as a high schooler on Nickelodeon more than ten years ago. We shouldn’t expect that of her, either.

While body-shaming comments from your harshest critics is (unfortunately) expected as a female public figure, it hits harder when the negative remarks are coming from people who have purported to support you throughout your career. With the nature of social media today, and its ability to foster parasocial relationships amongst fans, it easily becomes Grande’s dedicated fans that claim they know more about her own health than she does herself.

In 2021, the “7 Rings” singer was body-shamed by fans after posting a picture of herself on Instagram, where she was deemed too thin or “underweight” in the comments section. Just one year prior, online commentators believed she had gained too much weight as harsh comments began trending on Twitter. Last week, a video titled “wtf happened to Ariana Grande?” received 287,000 views on YouTube.

The issue isn’t just that we comment on people’s bodies, but that we feel so comfortable doing it, especially when it comes to our favourite stars. Singer-songwriter Phoebe Bridgers aptly summarised into words the feeling of being scrutinised by those who claim to love you most. “People with my picture as their Twitter picture, who claim to like my music, fucking bullied me at the airport on the way to my father’s funeral this year,” Bridgers said in an interview with Them last month. “If you’re a kid and the internet somehow taught you that that’s an okay thing to do, then of course I hate capitalism and everything that led you to believe that it’s okay to do that.

“I, at one of the lowest points of my life, saw people who claim to love me fucking dehumanize me and shame me and fucking bully me on the way to my dad’s wake.”

If people are still so bored that the only subject they can seem to talk about is someone’s weight or appearance, then I propose a new solution to how we feel about our own bodies and how we approach it with others: body neutrality. If body positivity is about loving your body, regardless of whether it fits society’s standards of beauty, then body neutrality is simply about accepting your body and its ability to keep you alive. Even Ariana Grande said in her video that she was just “a person with a body”… and she was right.