GettyRihanna is the latest celebrity to fall foul of media fat-shaming.
After putting on weight for a role – as actors are required to do for their craft – one blogger decided to publicly shame the 29-year-old Barbadian singer for the way her body looks… because apparently some people will never learn.
Barstool Sports writer Chris ‘Spags’ Spagnuolo asked the question that literally no one wanted the answer to: Is Rihanna going to make being fat the hot new trend?
Is Rihanna going to make being fat the hot new trend? https://t.co/DnFdi9AZy3 pic.twitter.com/r6jed6wRiQ
— Chris Spags (@ChrisSpags) May 30, 2017
Spags – who is by no means an expert on the female form, or acting, or anything easily decipherable from his writing – sprayed 350 words of shit all over the Internet about Rihanna’s weight, musing that she had been ‘enjoying that good room service for a bit too long’ and looked like she was wearing a sumo suit.
Spags spouted his misogynistic crap, as follows:
A world of ladies shaped like the Hindenburg loaded into one-piece bathing suits may be on the horizon now that Rihanna is traipsing around out there looking like she’s in a sumo suit.
Twitter responded in all its glory, refusing to put up with Spags’ shit:
I've yet to come across one male employee at barstool that isn't shaped like a lump of raw dough so congratulations you played yourself.
— olivia ? (@livyrozay) May 30, 2017
Delete this shit! You're out of line. pic.twitter.com/72x13kS3A4
— Crys. (@CandidlyCrystal) May 30, 2017
https://twitter.com/lindseyadler/status/869607278374027264
To the clown trying to fat shame Rihanna…ur just mad bc Rihanna can be morbidly obese and still get laid unlike urself. Kick rocks clown ?
— Highly Favored ??? (@tokingblackgirl) May 31, 2017
the only people who would fat shame Rihanna are white men with small dicks! pathetic #wendyshow
— Tiffany (@Vivacious_Fab) May 31, 2017
Did I see someone 'fat shame' Rihanna? HOW DARE YOU??? pic.twitter.com/aEzrCqt0Gs
— Saina (@Callmesaina1) April 19, 2017
Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy later issued a statement so half-arsed it might just be more offensive than his writer’s misogynistic magnum opus.
Portnoy said:
To be honest I don’t think the blog was as bad as many are making it out to be, but I’ll tell you this. It wasn’t that funny either and I could have told you with absolute certainty that feminists would hate it and use it as an example of ‘there goes Barstool being Barstool again’.
GettyRather than look to the source of the issue – namely his website – Portnoy continued:
There are just certain topics that you better nail if you’re gonna write about them because, you know, they are hot button issues for us. So if you’re gonna blog about Rihanna gaining weight you better be funny as fuck and you better make it bullet proof.
You heard it from Barstool first: Be as offensive as you like, just make sure your words at someone else’s expense are ‘funny as fuck’.
A former emo kid who talks too much about 8Chan meme culture, the Kardashian Klan, and how her smartphone is probably killing her. Francesca is a Cardiff University Journalism Masters grad who has done words for BBC, ELLE, The Debrief, DAZED, an art magazine you’ve never heard of and a feminist zine which never went to print.