Rihanna’s Response to Body Shamers Is a BadGal Feminist Slap

In case anyone forgot, pop’s resident BadGal would like all of us to know that she isn’t here to score hotness points with the Internet peanut gallery. Last week, Rihanna prompted a (now-unemployed) male blogger to declare that her purportedly fuller figure made her look like she was wearing a “sumo suit.” Ridiculous as the ensuing 24-hour discussion of her body was, Rihanna's clap-back yesterday was the bro-slap heard around the world.

In the era of digital body shaming, female celebrities all too often find themselves in the position of explaining away perceived notions surrounding their weight gain or loss on social media. But in typical renegade fashion, Rihanna doubled down on her just-right size instead by posting before/after shots of rapper Gucci Mane that are ten years and a good 20 pounds apart on Instagram. The caption? “If you can’t handle me at my 2007 Gucci Mane, you don’t deserve me at my 2017 Gucci Mane.”

By posting a picture of a man, rather than explain herself, the singer expertly shifted the conversation to one simple fact: In their private and public lives alike, men rarely need to defend their bodies. Accompanied by a crying emoji that seemed more like a proverbial eye roll, Rihanna prompted consideration of a few more heavy hitting truths. With 8 critically acclaimed studio albums, 8 Grammy awards, 53 million Instagram fans, and an estimated $75 million in earnings to her name last year alone, why would the BadGal so much as shed a tear over this kind of “controversy”? To to use RiRi’s own lyrics: “Think I give a damn, boy don’t you know who I am?”

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