In case you missed it, today the internet is awash with headlines like ‘Rihanna Gained Some Serious Weight’ and ‘Rihanna’s Weight Gain: She’s NOT Pregnant — Why She Put On Lbs’.
While it pains me that those are real headlines from actual publications, the 29-year-old is by no means ‘big’ – but she is a little bit bigger.
I do not say this to be mean; I say it as an objective fact. I also say it with a triumphant urge to yell ‘BLOODY GOOD ON HER’ at the top of my lungs while shaking a maraca and my tatas in the air.
For someone who has existed in the public eye – who has had her skin, hair, boobs, and butt under an unforgiving microscope of scrutiny for the last 14 years – surely it’s a good thing that Rihanna is living a life like so many other women around her. A perfectly healthy and fulfilled life where weight might fluctuate across the months, but is no longer a prison that determines our worth.
I don’t know what Rihanna’s lifestyle choices have been in the past, but if we’ve learned anything from celebrities, it’s that their taut bodies are very rarely ‘natural’. Almost always, they’re a product of sweat and hunger and money, not blessed luck or genetics.
Take Beyonce’s ‘Master Cleanse Diet’, for instance – the meal plan that requires participants to eat nothing and drink six to 12 glasses of lemonade mixture daily, as well as a nightly laxative tea, for a minimum of 10 consecutive days at a time. The pop star has publicly admitted she employed the ‘cleanse’ in the lead up to big events when she needed to look her thinnest.
Then there’s Gisele Bundchen, who eats an organic-only diet of 80 per cent vegetables, and has completely banned coffee, milk, sugar, alcohol forever.