17 Celebrities Who’ve Spoken Out About Body Image

In 2017, Serena Williams, now 40, wrote a letter to her mother, Oracene Price, and shared it on Reddit. It was about the body shaming she dealt with throughout her career. "I've been called man because I appeared outwardly strong," the 23-time Grand Slam tennis champion wrote.

She rebuffed those who told her she belonged in men’s sports because she looks stronger than other women. "No, I just work hard, and I was born with this badass body and proud of it. ... I am proud we were able to show them what some women look like. We don't all look the same. We are curvy, strong, muscular, tall, small, just to name a few, and all the same: We are women and proud!"

The message from Williams that bodies come in all shapes and sizes is simple, but potent, Atkinson says. "After decades of being taught that all bodies can and should be the same shape to be worthy, 'healthy,' or beautiful — especially women's bodies — [this message from Williams] cannot be said enough."

The revered actor, producer, and advocate Laverne Cox, 50, is the first openly transgender person to appear on numerous magazine covers, including Cosmopolitan, Essence, Time, and more. And it hasn’t been an easy road. In 2015, she gave a speech at the Daily Front Row Fashion Media Awards outlining her journey to self-acceptance.

“Years ago, at the beginning of my transition, I would walk down the street, and I would hear people yell, ‘That’s a man,’ and I would be devastated,” she said. “It took me years to internalize that someone could look at me and tell that I am transgender. That is not only okay, that is beautiful. Trans is beautiful. All the things that make me uniquely and beautifully trans — my big hands, my big feet, my wide shoulders, my deep voice — are beautiful.”

Internal messaging plays a big role in body image, Atkinson says. "When we can internalize the truth, that bodies are naturally incredibly diverse," she says, "we can create magic by celebrating the parts of us we'd previously rejected."

The singer and actress Ali Stroker is the first wheelchair-using performer to appear on Broadway, playing Ado Annie in Oklahoma in 2019 and Anna in Spring Awakening in 2015, the Daily News previously reported. She’s also the first to be nominated for and win a Tony Award, the New York Times reported in 2019.

In a 2020 interview with Health, the 35-year-old performer implied that she doesn’t let her physical limitations keep her from chasing her goals.

"Because I was injured when I was so young, it’s like, this has always been me," she said in the interview. "So it’s almost weird to even call it a diagnosis, and for a long time I didn’t even use the word disability. I was like, this is just me. And so I was kind of thinking people were putting it on as a label, but I was like wait, this is just me. It’s who I am. This is my life, my body, and it’s the way that I experience the world."

Stroker's message is one anyone who wants to adopt a healthier body image can learn from, Atkinson says. “We've been convinced to be more concerned with others' experience of looking at our bodies than our own experience in living in our bodies.” Refocusing that concern, like Stroker did, can really help, she says.

In 2021, the hitmaker sat down for a rare interview with Vogue, in which she addressed a topic that controversially rocked the internet: her weight loss, which happened over a period of two years. The 15-time Grammy winner cites her anxiety as the reason she fell in love with daily exercise. “Working out, I would just feel better,” the 34-year-old said.

“People are shocked because I didn’t share my ‘journey,’” she added. “They’re used to people documenting everything on Instagram, and most people in my position would get a big deal with a diet brand. I couldn’t give a flying f***. I did it for myself and not anyone else. So why would I ever share it? I don’t find it fascinating. It’s my body.”

The veteran actor Jamie Lee Curtis — the star of Halloween Ends, which launched this month — has been part of the conversation around what it means to have a healthy body image for decades. In 2002, she posed for a “before and after” photo shoot for the September issue of More Magazine, which detailed the time and team of professionals it took to transform the 43-year-old mother of two children into her red-carpet-ready look. SFGate.com reported in August 2002 that the shoot was Curtis’s idea.

In an Instagram post in March while she was promoting Everything Everywhere All at Once, Curtis (now 63 years old) said about her character’s round belly: “I want there to be no concealing of anything. I've been sucking my stomach in since I was 11, when you start being conscious of boys and bodies.”

Bucking that societal norm was freeing, she added. “I very specifically decided to relinquish and release every muscle I had that I used to clench to hide the reality. That was my goal. I have never felt more free creatively and physically.”

In an October interview with the New York Times, she said she had made it clear that she “would like to not be sucking my stomach in for the entire movie.” And she felt great about it. “All I’m interested in is freedom as a performer, and I don’t get that opportunity very often. But the times I’ve been able to be free, I’m on fire.”

In 2017, the actor shared a post to Instagram that included an unedited candid of herself at the beach in a one-piece swimsuit.

“Since websites and magazines love to share 'celeb flaws' — well I have them!” she wrote in the caption. “My body has given me the greatest gift of my life: Luca, 5 years ago. I'm turning 30 in September and my body is healthy and gets me where I need to go.” She concluded: “Ladies, let's be proud of what we've got and stop wasting precious time in the day wishing we were different, better, and unflawed.”

In a 2019 interview with Elle Canada, Lana Condor, 25, an actor and the star of the Netflix hit To All the Boys I’ve Loved, said, “I know what it’s like to have an eating disorder and body dysmorphia — and also what it’s like to be a friend to someone who has that. … You have to stop thinking that a certain body shape is ideal, because it’s not.”

That’s the reason, she explained in the interview, that she posts about every meal she eats on her Instagram account — to be real.

The 57-year-old supermodel is no stranger to speaking out about ageism. In a 2022 interview with People, Paulina Porizkova said it’s a movement that calls for more acknowledgment.

"I felt ashamed to be aging, and then on the other hand you go, 'But, I'm smarter, I'm better, I'm funnier, I'm more patient!'” she said. "Overall as a person, I'm the best I've ever been. So I'm not ready to be dismissed.

"You don't get to dismiss me because I have some wrinkles and sags and gray hair now, when I'm kind of fabulous, the most fabulous I've ever been," she adds. "In fact, I'm going to just put it out there and go, You know what, this is me at my best. Deal with it!”

Aging is not failure, Atkinson says. She applauds Porizkova for standing up for it. “The idea that we should be ashamed of the most natural processes is bonkers, because it's such a privilege that many miss out on."

Having been in the public eye from a young age, the former Disney star is no stranger to scrutiny. After he played a lead in Baywatch (a 2017 movie reboot of the popular ’90s series), fans associated Efron with his chiseled physique and wasted no time pointing out when he shifted to more of a “dad bod” look.

But in an interview with Men’s Health in September, Efron opened up about how he never wants to resort to the methods it took to achieve that lifeguard body again, and in his opinion, nor should anybody else.

The picture-perfect body came at the price of diuretics, overtraining, poor sleep, and the same three meals every day. “I started to develop insomnia,” he said in the interview. “And I fell into a pretty bad depression for a long time.”

It took the actor six months after filming to feel normal again, he said in the interview.

He wants people who aspire to that type of body to know that he ruined his own health working toward that goal. Efron told Men’s Health that moving forward, he is looking for deeper transformations in his career, not just physical transformations.

The supermodel Winnie Harlow, 28, skyrocketed to fame on America’s Next Top Model in 2014, and she’s intent on redefining traditional beauty standards. At age 4, she was diagnosed with vitiligo, a condition that causes areas of skin to lose color.

“My skin has changed so much in the past six years,” she wrote in a 2019 Instagram post. “It's incredible. Evolution of Vitiligo is beautiful. Don’t be ashamed of what makes you different. My skin changes all the time, I relearn how to do my makeup all the time based on what suits it in that time. Skin is just skin. We shouldn’t judge based on it, condition or race. Like our minds and souls, my skin is ever evolving.”

Before stepping onto red carpets, the actor, comedian, and director Mindy Kaling, 43, used to severely restrict her eating.

In a 2021 interview with Shape, she said, "It'd be like, 'Oh my gosh, the six weeks beforehand I have to stop eating,' or I'd only eat a tiny piece of steak and some asparagus, and that's what I'd eat all day.’”

Now she says she’s over that type of restriction. "I love to eat at restaurants, I love to eat home cooking, and I don't like restricting my diet. And [now] I'm like, as long as I'm getting enough nutrients and feeling like my heart and my lungs are really getting exercise, I don't really beat myself up about that,” she said.

When you think of Selena Gomez, her Disney Channel stint might come to mind, or perhaps her chart-topping radio hits. But like everyone else, the singer and actor has her own battles, one being an autoimmune disease, lupus. In 2017, she underwent an emergency kidney transplant in which doctors had to use arteries from her legs.

In an Instagram post shared in 2020, Gomez, 30, opened up about her journey, proudly baring her scars. “When I got my kidney transplant, I remember it being very difficult at first showing my scar,” she writes. “I didn’t want it to be in photos, so I wore things that would cover it up. Now, more than ever, I feel confident in who I am and what I went through … and I’m proud of that.”

The supermodel Ashley Graham, 34, propelled to fame in 2016 when she graced the cover of Sports Illustrated Swimsuit; it was the first time the magazine had bestowed the gig on a size-16 individual. That same year, in an interview with Self, she declared that one of her goals is to “change how women think about themselves.”

“I've been denied jobs because I was too big,” she said. “I've also been denied jobs because I was too small. At the end of the day, I'm never going to conform to what anybody wants. This is my body; I'm happy in it. And nobody — nobody — has control over my body but me."

In a 2020 interview with GQ, the38-year-old actor, comedian, and filmmaker opened up about celebrating his personal style — and how it’s been a tumultuous journey to the realization that he has a right to love fashion just like anyone else.

“I think the biggest shift in my personal style was that I always had an interest in personal style and fashion, but I was always a bigger guy,” he said. “Even now, I'll overhear someone discussing my place in the fashion world or whatever, and people are like, ‘That guy? The schlubby guy from Superbad?’”

His turning point was “realizing, whether I was big or small, that I really can define my own personal style,” he said. “For me, that was a big turning point of realizing: Okay, be yourself. You don't have to be anything you don't want to be. And if you're really interested in fashion then you should be, don't push that away. Lean into it.”

Hulu’s Good Luck to You, Leo Grande has garnered critical acclaim since its June 2022 premiere. It stars the British actor and writer Emma Thompson, 63, who appears nude on-screen for the first time in her career.

In a June interview with the New York Times about the role, Thompson revealed that she gave into dieting and even starving herself to try and be “thin enough” earlier in her career.

Now she’s ensuring she’s a part of the revolution, and encouraging others to do the same. “It’s not fair to say, ‘No, I’m just this shape naturally.’ It’s dishonest and it makes other women feel like [expletive],” she said. “So if you want the world to change, and you want the iconography of the female body to change, then you better be a part of the change. You better be different,” she said.

Jonathan Van Ness says they used to use the phrase “body positivity,” but has since adopted the term “body neutrality.” In an excerpt from their book, Love That Story: Obser­va­­tions From a Gorgeously Queer Life, published by Marie Claire, the Queer Eye star went into detail about why this language is so important: “Body neutrality allows for a more naturally holistic relationship with these physical vessels we inhabit,” the 35-year-old hairstylist wrote. “And the idea is to focus on what our bodies can do for us, not how they appear.”

They added: “It’s OK for me to have days where I wish I looked a little different, so long as I understand that I can also lead a complete, gorgeous, and fulfilling life that coexists with those feelings.”

The TV host and carpenter (who famously yelled “Move that bus!” on Extreme Makeover: Home Edition) took to Instagram in February to detail his experience being shamed by internet trolls over his appearance — and his thoughts on aging.

“I posted a video recently of myself dancing on the beach, with my shorts hiked up,” he began. “What was an honest moment of just trying to make my wife laugh, was then picked apart by strangers — with a lot of views, comes a lot of hate! Comments like ‘disgusting,’ ‘gross,’ ‘omg he’s so old now,’ ‘grandpa,’ ‘he got fat’ (which btw I’m pushing my stomach out but ok).”

He continues: “No, I don’t have a six pack anymore or a luscious head of hair (with frosted tips) but what I do have is wisdom, empathy, life lessons and at 57 years old, I’ve TRULY never been happier! Anyways, all this to say: I’m human and I have feelings. Yes, I am older but I think it’s pretty cool.”

Additional reporting by Elena Barrera.