Sharon Osbourne is catching criticism for recent comments she made about Adele's much-discussed weight loss.
If you've been staying off the internet lately, let me get you up to speed. On May 5, Adele posted a photo to thank fans for sending her birthday wishes and to shout out health care workers on the front line of the coronavirus pandemic. But the chatter online quickly zeroed in on Adele's weight loss. The excessive praise the internet gave her shed light on the fact our culture still overtly idolizes thin bodies and makes fat and plus-size people feel as if they haven't "arrived" until they've lost weight. To be clear, this has nothing to do with Adele—she can post whatever she wants. This is about the way people on the internet responded.
Now Osbourne is adding fuel to the fire. During a virtual discussion on The Talk about Adele's viral photo, Osbourne, a cohost on the show, asserted that she doesn't think "really big women" are actually happy in their body.
"When really big women say they're really happy in their body, I don't believe them," she said on May 12's episode of The Talk, according to CNN.
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In 1999, Osbourne underwent gastric band surgery to help her lose 100 pounds. "I wasn't happy," Osbourne said during the Talk episode. "Sure, on the surface, ha-ha, but at night, in bed, alone, I was very unhappy."
And on the topic of Adele specifically, she said, "I am happy for her and everybody should be happy for her, because it was her choice. She didn’t do it for anybody else but herself. And so everybody should be happy for her…. It was her time to lose weight. She must have felt, 'You know what, I'm going try to lose some weight.' For whatever reason, health, I'm sure."
Obviously, Osbourne's experience with weight loss and body image is her own, and she has every right to feel how she does about it. But the trouble with her statements is that they're general. She doesn't know how fat and plus-size women feel about their body. The only people who do are…the women themselves. Just because Osbourne was unhappy with her body doesn't mean other people are with theirs. We all have very personal, one-on-one relationships with our bodies, and Osbourne should remember that.
This also unlocks a very dangerous narrative: that the only way fat people can achieve true happiness is if they lose weight, which is just not true. It's ridiculous that our culture is still pushing that. Everyone is entitled to feel happy and be respected as they are right now. Regardless of weight. The fact we're discussing body types at all in 2020 is absurd.
Osbourne has not responded to the backlash over her comment, but we'll update if and when she does. We'd all do well to stop talking about Adele's body (and everyone else's, for that matter) and start focusing on what matters: when she's dropping that album.
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