Kate Upton Fires Back Against Body Critics
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Tony Barson/FilmMagic(NEW YORK) — In the midst of a very public battle over her body image, model Kate Upton has fired back against those who have been attacking her weight.
A pro-anorexia website called Upton “thick” and “vulgar” while criticizing her appearance in raunchy burger commercials.
But 20-year-old Upton has had enough and finally fired back.
Upton said, “I’m not going to starve just to be thin. I want to enjoy life and I can’t if I’m not eating and miserable,” The Sun reported Monday.
A spokesman for the model added, “It’s absurd. Kate is gorgeous and very healthy.”
The unnamed female blogger who sparked the Upton uproar acknowledges preferring the “skinny aesthetic,” wrote in a July 8 post on the website “Skinny Gurl” that she has been deluged with angry emails and threatened with rape and death.
The controversy first began back in June when the blogger wrote that Upton was, “confidently lumbering up the runway like there’s a buffet at the end of it,” and also called her a “little piggie” with “huge thighs, NO waist, big fat floppy boobs, terrible body definition….”
She continued: “Did you know that humans are 80% genetically identical to cows? Well, allow me to prove it to you….” That line was followed by an unflattering photo of the back of Upton’s lingerie-clad body on the runway.
Since then, the fashion world’s most influential insiders have denounced the blogger and risen to Upton’s defense.
“Running this site where you actually praise women for staying emaciated and skinny and then to go out there and then track someone who has a normal body, I mean, she’s got issues,” said Lesley Jane Seymour, editor-in-chief of MORE magazine.
“She’s laughing all the way to the bank,” supermodel and author Carol Alt said of Upton. “I would just say keep your end up and keep moving forward.”
Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio