Comments can get weird on social media, but body shaming Jorja Smith takes the biscuit for this week’s episode of ‘people say weird things on the internet’. The award-winning, Grammy-nominated singer/songwriter might be best known for her distinctive and angelic vocals, but lately all people seem to be focused on is whether she’s either pregnant or simply gaining weight.
The internet has been hellbent on policing celebrities' weight forever – and Jorja herself has been a prime target for a while. The 25-year-old has always rocked her naturally curvy body proudly, but more and more people have had something to say about it.
This conversation has been bubbling for a few months, but recently, the negative comments have resurfaced after Jorja's performance on Strictly Come Dancing. She wore a sparkly fishnet dress with a matching shrug and a flawless full beat of makeup.
But that's not what people on socials were commenting. With blogs and many users (mostly men) pointing out her “apparent obvious weight gain” with side by side pictures from when she was 21 versus now at 26. Some users even going as far as saying that she was “past her prime”. Now, I'm not interested in abiding by the self-appointed “prime police”, nor should anyone. Because who said that these people should have a say on what Jorja's body is supposed to look like?
Jorja Smith was interviewed for the cover of PORTER which was just released on Monday and there she says: “People comment on me a lot. They comment on what I look like. I don’t search for things, but if I’m on TikTok, I’ll see comments, and they won’t be all negative but… [for example], I’ve put on some weight, which is normal because I’m not a child. Like, it’s cool. But the world doesn’t let you be cool,” she explains. “That’s not me being jaded, but I’ve definitely been affected by it,” she says.
Jorja has since hopped on the Instagram comments to clarify: “I didn't move to escape trolls & 2 I'm 21 in one pic and 26 in the other. I never was very healthy before either & have to grow in front of u all, what a strange world we live in”.
This is of course not the first time Jorja has been dealing with social media trolling, specifically regarding her weight.
A couple of months back, there were also videos of her performing in Paris in front of a sold-out crowd – a 40,000-people-deep arena – with Grammy Award winning artist Burna Boy, surfaced.
“[Wait] a minute is my girl jorja expecting???...” says one user on one of the viral clips of the performance on Instagram. Another user responded with “No, she’s just eating [too] much”. Amongst this rudely presumptuous comment, there were a slew of the comments like: “Nah she just fat” and the comments sections on Instagram, Twitter and TikTok posts are inundated with a copious amount of derogatory and hurtful statements around Jorja Smith’s weight and body shape.
Things had come to a breaking point, as Jorja released visuals for a ‘Little Things’ song remix with Nia Archives. Fans were now putting the pregnancy speculations aside, and instead, fighting trolls on the internet that are critiquing her weight-gain. Jorja's name is trending on Twitter, as well as the term ‘Jorja Smith gained weight’ and people are coming out of the wood work to taunt her over her curves, while posting old photos of her younger woman body side-by-side.
The ‘Be Honest’ singer has also spoken about this in the past, revealing to Adwoa Aboah for an Elle Magazine interview back in 2019 that she used to read comments about her weight gain but she had to stop. “I don’t really read the comments,” she told Adwoa. “One thing that used to happen was, because my tummy’s not flat, if I wear tight things, it sticks out a bit.” says Jorja. “People comment: ‘She looks pregnant.’ People think that, because I have loads of followers, I don’t see things online.”
Of course that was then, and Jorja is open about the fact that as much as she may not look for it, sometimes that energy comes to find her. “If I hadn’t moved back, I think I’d be finding the pressures of people’s opinions to be too much,” she adds. “Now I’m back home, I have a bit of a balance.” she tells Charlie Brinkhurst-Cuff for PORTER.
It’s easy to say, ‘Oh she’s rich and she’s a celebrity, she’ll be fine’. But ultimately she’s still a human being, who uses social media and gets hurt by people’s ill-mannered opinions. In fact, she has admitted that it took her years to get to grips with her body and her look, as from a young age she’s felt shamed for it.
“In school, all my friends were white. All my friends were skinny. I wanted to be skinny. I ran so hard and didn’t eat that much because I wanted to fit in. But now I’ve finally realised that you are you for a reason. You look like you, cuz you do, you can’t look like anyone else.” says the singer on a BBC1XTRA Interview.
In today's age of social media and constant scrutiny, it’s very disheartening to still be witness to the unfair treatment women often face when it comes to body image. Not only does it affect them personally, but it’s a direct mirror on how society treats women-alike. There are millions of young women across the world with bodies like Jorja’s, so naturally, this affects them too.
This is because what this shaming says is that, if her having fame and fortune is not enough to ‘over-compensate’ for her body shape, then nothing is. It says that this very “normal”, and very “natural” body shape (often genetic) is unhealthy, undesirable and fit for shaming. Being that we’re in 2023 it’s weird that we are still trying to convince people that there is one size fits all for beauty standards and that this is the optimum metric for measuring health.
Things get weirder, because when you type Jorja Smith into TikTok’s search bar, the first few prompts will say ‘jorja smith pregnant’ and ‘jorja smith weight gain’. Jorja has so many accolades attached to her name, and very rarely finds herself attached to scandals. It’s about time we spend more of our energy emphasising the importance of body neutrality, and encouraging ourselves and our peers to appreciate artistry and character beyond physical appearances, especially if it’s going to come from a negative place.
Malin Andersson, motivational speaker and Author of “Positivity is our Super Power” speaks on body image in her platforms a lot, and she shared her thoughts on the backlash that Jorja has been receiving over her body. “We instantly look at people's outer image rather than what's going on in their mind, their mental health and we're quick to judge. But there is a huge butterfly effect with this, because we're going to get the younger generation reading these comments, looking at these videos of Jorja Smith and think there's something wrong with them too, when there isn't. We're teaching younger minds that, that's okay, and it's absolutely not.”
“People think they have the right to comment on women's body's if they're in the public eye. But, they have no idea of the negative impact it can have on that person. It's also very sad that's all people can think of now.” she adds. “Wether it's weight loss or weight gain you can't win.” Malin has first hand experienced a bit of both, and she adds that these slew of comments are not indicative to what Jorja herself looks like, but more so to how quickly society rushes to criticise women's bodies.
“Weight loss and weight gain has no direct correlation to someone's health. When I lost weight, people thought ‘she’s got really skinny, she's go an eating disorder.’ Little do they know, that mentally, fitness has changed my life in such a healthy and good way. There is no knowing what it's going on with someone's mind based on their body shape, so that's were judging needs to stop.” Malin adds.
Jorja is a Black woman in a world that has historically favoured Western beauty standards above all others, so, much like many other Black women across the globe, she’s probably well versed in the relentless scrutiny over her beauty features and her body.
Jorja is a Black woman in a world that has historically favoured Western beauty standards above all others, so, much like many other Black women across the globe, she’s probably well versed in the relentless scrutiny over her beauty features and her body. Of course, this is not something isolated to Black women, as most women in Hollywood could probably say that their bodies have been picked apart and scrutinised to the nth degree too, however, there is an added element of race that we can’t disregard.
It’s frustrating to see this conversation around fat-shaming, or assume a person’s pregnancy without any substantiated evidence, as this perpetuates harmful stigmas that can have a lasting impact on people’s mental health and self-esteem. Surely, we cannot be banging on about this topic over and over again…
Although not all comments were bad. “Can we normalise having a belly, and stop commenting on people’s weight…it’s not nice” says one user. While others rushed to compliment her talent, over her body type.
Ultimately Jorja doesn’t owe us skinny (or whatever skinny is), just because she’s on TV, on our IG feeds, and in our Spotify playlists. She owes herself her best, happiest and healthiest existance. We should perhaps be more concerned in celebrating her beauty and talent instead of making assumptions that could be triggering or offensive to her and others.
After all, whether we believe it to be happy weight gain, or pregnancy, one thing we know for certain, is it most certainly is none of our business… until she tells us otherwise. Jorja, is an unproblematic, beautiful and talented queen so can we let our good sis live?
For more from Glamour UK Beauty Writer Shei Mamona, follow her on Instagram @sheimamona
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