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Singer Grimes has launched a lengthy defense after several “weird” stills from Selena Gomez’s new music video went viral, sparking “high school-level bullying” over the newlyweds’ appearance.
One commenter claimed that Gomez, 33, has had plastic surgery and looks “like the monster on this week’s X-Files,” based on a blurry capture from her new “In the Dark” video. In response, Grimes, 37, said the comments made her think “maybe I need to step away” from the internet.
“Aside from some weird funny shots that people cropped out that grossly misrepresented her appearance, she looks very beautiful and is probably one of the most beautiful girls around. Imagine how you would feel if people talked about you like this,” Grimes (real name: Claire Boucher) wrote in an Oct. 25 post on X.
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“Imagine the mental strength she probably has,” Grimes wrote of Gomez, asking how she could avoid “thoroughly morally condemning” someone who continues to post negative and viral posts for “influence at the expense of everyone’s mental health.”
“How do you think little girls feel when they read articles like this about other women?” Grimes asked.
Gomez, who has lupus, has previously explained that her condition causes “weight fluctuations” and has spoken out about body shaming in the past. “I have lupus and I’m dealing with kidney issues and high blood pressure, so I deal with a lot of health issues. And for me, that’s when I really started noticing body image issues,” she said during a November 2019 interview with her friend Raquel Stevens on the video podcast “Giving Back Generation.”
Grimes continued to defend the Waverly Place Wizards alumnus, writing, “Bullying at the high school level is unacceptable. Their accounts should be suspended all together for body shaming.”
Grimes, who has three children with X owner and chairman Elon Musk, reiterated that the still images were taken out of context, saying: “This is disturbing because when you actually look at this video, it’s not true.”
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“In the Dark,” from Nobody Wants This Season 2: The Soundtrack, is Gomez’s first release since March, when she collaborated with her now-husband Benny Blanco on the album “I Said I Loved You First.”
While acknowledging that she’s not actually in the job of “knowing what celebrities are even doing,” Grimes called the internet “unhealthy” and concluded her post by sharing that body shaming is “the death of a culture when it’s socially acceptable behavior. Not just for Selena and the writers, but for everyone who watches this and engages in this level of dehumanization.”
