ALISON BOSHOFF: Jo Brand admits she ‘doesn’t understand’ the body positivity movement after a lifetime of being fat-shamed
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Jo Brand admires the body positive movement, but says it has come too late for her.
Speaking on the podcast Get It On she revealed that after years of being shamed for her appearance she doesn’t understand how young women have the confidence to wear skimpy plus-size ensembles.
She explained: ‘There’s a very different attitude towards it now, which I kind of admire in a way, but I’m saddled with the “you shameful hulk” attitude that we had in my day. It was always the first thing people commented on.
‘I just got used to those blows and dealing with them, and it’s fine.
‘But I couldn’t bring myself in this day and age to wear what much bigger women wear confidently. I don’t understand how they can do that, but I do admire it.’
Candid: Jo Brand has admitted she ‘doesn’t understand’ the body positivity movement after a lifetime of being fat-shamed
Asked if she might show up dressed as flamboyant singer and rapper Lizzo she says: ‘If I ever get asked on Songs of Praise, I will.’
Jo is famous for her self-deprecating jokes about her appearance.
In her first television appearance, she quipped: ‘I read that book Fat is a Feminist issue, got a bit desperate halfway through and ate it.’
The straight-talking entertainer with cropped red hair previously said she often overheard studio staff discussing how they could make her ‘pretty’ as she prepared to face the cameras.
She also told how senior staff on an ITV quiz show wanted her to ditch her trademark bovver boots for soaring stiletto heels so she might appear more glamorous.
‘I can remember little discussions that I overheard about the way that I looked, couldn’t they make me be a bit more… I don’t know what they were after… feminine, pretty, you know?’ she said on the fashion podcast Who Are You Wearing?
‘Like people would say, ‘Oh you should wear lots of different colours.’ I was thinking, ‘Oh all right then, if you choose it, all right, I’ll wear it unless it looks absolutely ridiculous’ – which on occasion things have.
‘I remember some quiz show on ITV. They gave me a pair of five-inch heels and expected me to go down the stairs in them. I just said, ‘There is no way that I’m going to get to the bottom of the stairs without having to go to A&E. It’s those sort of things.’
Confidence: She revealed that after years of being shamed for her appearance she doesn’t understand how young women have the confidence to wear skimpy plus-size ensembles
Jo said her stylist Karen Jackson chooses her outfits for Have I Got News For You and Channel 4’s Extra Slice, because, ‘I wouldn’t choose anything that is posh or nice’.
She added: ‘I know that what she picks for me does look nice, because my daughters say it does, and they don’t often say.
‘I can remember in the very old days doing [Channel 4 comedy show] Friday Night Live and them obviously looking at me and thinking, ‘God we’ve allowed her to dress herself, and she looks like Robert Smith from The Cure.’ ‘
She explained: I’m saddled with the “you shameful hulk” attitude that we had in my day. It was always the first thing people commented on’
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