Taylor Swift Is Being Accused Of Fatphobia By Her Fans

With the release of her latest album Midnights, Taylor Swift has the internet in the palm of her hand, but her newest music video has fans accusing her of fatphobia.

Taylor Swift dropped her tenth studio album on Friday, and, along with it, a music video for the album’s first single, ‘Anti-Hero’.

“This song really is a real guided tour throughout all the things I tend to hate about myself. We all hate things about ourselves,” she said, on Instagram.

The video follows suit to the theme of the single — Swift uses meta throughout the clip, interacting with past versions of herself, referencing her tours, and even attending the reading of her own last will and testament.

But one moment in particular has even her most loyal fans being critical. In a sequence likely referencing Swift’s own disordered eating struggles, Swift stands on a scale to weigh herself and it simply reads the word ‘fat’.

Many Swifties have tried to excuse the video’s sequence, citing Swift’s own struggles as justification for an image that ultimately demonises fat bodies. One fan went so far as to say that Swift’s video was actually critiquing the prominence of fatphobia in the minds of young women.

“If you think any time people with an eating disorder speak about their issues it’s fatphobic you’re facilitating the idea that people shouldn’t talk about it,” one fan wrote.

However, as many fat Swifties and fat advocates pointed out, Swift’s personal struggles with eating disorders don’t exempt her from being fatphobic. Fatphobia and eating disorders are inherently linked, with internalised fatphobia being one of the main contributing factors to eating disorders.

“Fat people don’t need to have it reiterated yet again that it’s everyone’s worst nightmare to look like us,” read licensed clinical social worker, Shira Rosenbluth‘s viral tweet. “Having an eating disorder doesn’t excuse fatphobia.”

“…her having the scale say “fat” is a radical simplification of eating disorders, especially when fat people have EDs too,” another person tweeted.

In Australia, medical guidelines were recently updated to better help people who are fat get better treatment for disordered eating.

Everyone should be given space to discuss their struggles with illness. But as a thin public figure, Swift should be more aware of how her large platform gives her the power to unintentionally and single-handedly perpetuate fatphobia, the very thing that has clearly also hurt her.

Taylor Swift is yet to respond to fans’ criticism of ‘Anti-Hero’.