‘The View’ Hosts Defend Taylor Swift From Accusations of ‘Fatphobia': ‘Leave Her Ass Alone!’
The hosts of “The View” will not stand for accusations of being “fatphobic” being leveled at Taylor Swift. On Tuesday’s show, the women made their thoughts very clear: “Leave her ass alone!”
The criticisms come in the wake of Swift’s release of her new album, “Midnights.” Among the tracks on the album is “Anti-Hero,” which the singer also released a video for, making it her lead single from the album. But, after one particular scene in the video, some are accusing Swift of using “fatphobic” messaging.
In the video, Swift steps on a scale which immediately displays the word “fat” instead of showing an actual number, while another version of herself peers judgmentally over her shoulder. As a result, some have interpreted it to mean that Swift is fat-shaming women who are her size, or bigger. But the hosts of “The View” disagree.
“She was just describing a personal experience,” Sunny Hostin said. “And quite frankly, it’s a personal experience that a lot of women experience.”
Indeed, Swift has previously been very vocal about her struggles with body image and eating disorders. In a 2020 interview with Variety, Swift admitted that “My relationship with food was exactly the same psychology that I applied to everything else in my life: if I was given a pat on the head, I registered that as good. If I was given a punishment, I registered that as bad.”
Swift noted that that “punishment” included one instance where she wound up on the cover of a magazine speculating that she was pregnant “because I had worn something that made my lower stomach look not flat.”
Hostin added that critics are missing the point, to which moderator Whoopi Goldberg chimed in “constantly.” Meanwhile, Whoopi was a bit more blunt in her own thoughts on the matter, often unable to finish her thought without getting frustrated.
“Just let her have her feelings. If you don’t like the song, don’t listen to it,” she said. “Why are you wasting your time on this? Leave that girl — you know, you all want to say something about Taylor Swift, leave her ass alone, OK?”
As the discussion continued, host Joy Behar argued that women at large should reclaim the word “fat,” similarly to how they “took back” the word “bitch.” And of course, Behar joked that no other word would have been as powerful on the scale.
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“What is she supposed to put on this scale, ‘plump?’ That doesn’t work,” Behar said.
Host Alyssa Farah Griffin added onto the support for Swift, saying that the singer is by no means obligated to share as much as she does, and criticizing those who “expect” her to do so but then get upset with the way she does it.
“Part of what makes Taylor Swift so uniquely excellent is she shares so much of herself with her audience,” Farah Griffin said. “She talks about her break-ups, she talks about her relationships, her different struggles. So on the one hand, we can’t expect her to put herself out there and give that to us, the listeners, then react and say ‘Oh, she shouldn’t tell us about this struggle that she’s having.'”
