Taylor Swift fans noticed on Thursday that a scene was edited from her new “Anti-Hero” music video on Apple Music and later on YouTube after critics called it “fatphobic.”
In the five-minute long video from her latest album “Midnights,” the 32-year-old singer is seen basically battling herself in a bathroom and stepping onto a scale. The “anti-hero” version of the singer then looks at herself with disappointment, reports Billboard magazine.
In the original video, the “Shake It Off” hitmaker and the “anti-hero” version of herself look down at the scale and read the message “Fat” with no numbers shown. In the stealth version, Swift steps onto the scale, both version’s of herself look down, and the scale shows no message.
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Shortly after the video came out, critics labeled the singer “fatphobic” and more.
“Taylor Swift’s music video, where she looks down at the scale where it says ‘fat,’ is a s***ty way to describe her body image struggles. Fat people don’t need to have it reiterated yet again that it’s everyone’s worst nightmare to look like us,” one person wrote.
“It is possible to appreciate Taylor Swift and midnight as an artist AND call her out on her blatant fatphobia,” another added. “Taylor Swift should have done better because even if it is relatable and an ‘intrusive thought’ it is damaging and fatphobic. Listen to fat ppl when they tell you it is.”
“There is no explanation for portraying fatness as bad and as something to fear which doesn’t justify the hatred of fat people,” another explained.
While another person tweeted, “fearing fatness is a basic pinnacle of how fatphobia operates. Having an eating disorder doesn’t make you exempt from this harm, including Taylor Swift.”
In an Instagram post about the “Anti-Hero” video, Swift described the music as reflective of her “nightmare scenarios and intrusive thoughts [playing] out in real time.”
One lyric in the song reads, “Sometimes I feel like everybody is a sexy baby / And I’m a monster on the hill.”
The verse connected to the bathroom scale scene reads, “I”ll stare directly at the sun/ But never in the mirror/ It must be exhausting always rooting for the anti-hero.”
