Celeb Chef to US Media: I Have a Round Tummy, Deal With It

Nigella Lawson is fully on board the 'stop Photoshopping celebrities' bandwagon
By Jenn Gidman,  Newser Staff
Posted Dec 17, 2018 9:25 AM CST
Celeb Chef to US Media: I Have a Round Tummy, Deal With It
In this Dec. 4, 2013, file photo, British chef Nigella Lawson arrives at Isleworth Crown Court in London.   (AP Photo/Sang Tan, File)

Everyone wants to look their best when their photo is taken or they're seen on TV, but not everyone is thrilled "to be airbrushed thinner." At least not British celebrity chef Nigella Lawson, who Sky News reports has taken issue with anyone trying to Photoshop how she looks. It all started Saturday, when Jameela Jamil, an actress on The Good Place, posted a harsh response to an opinion piece in an Irish newspaper, which had taken Jamil to task for advocating against airbrushing and "beseeching us to look uglier for the benefit of society." Jamil, who's long pushed back against manipulating images of celebrities, responded with a tweet: "A huge part of why I hate photoshop is how it's used as a tool of erasure of ethnicities, our skin colour, our features." That's when Lawson jumped in with her own tweet, responding to Jamil with a slam against US media in particular.

"I've had to tell American tv stations not to airbrush my sticking out stomach," the 58-year-old wrote. "The hatred of fat, and assumption that we'd all be grateful to be airbrushed thinner is pernicious." The Telegraph notes it's not the first time Lawson has bristled at being artificially "fixed." In 2013, she appeared in billboards around the US to promote her ABC show The Taste, and she told a food blog that TV execs were "wincing" at the sight of her belly under her clothing. "You could see the roundness. It was a tummy," she shrugged, adding that "as human beings, we are flawed, and it would make me more anxious to hide my flaws than to reveal them. … There's only so long I can hold my tummy in without breathing." (Lawson suffered some "humiliation" a few years back.)

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