Why Gabourey Sidibe Doesn't Want Congratulations For Her Weight Loss
"My body actually has nothing to do with you and I don’t really need your support for it.”
This article originally appeared on People.
Gabourey Sidibe doesn’t want to be congratulated for losing weight.
The Empire actress believes that people shouldn’t have an opinion on her own body.
“It just annoys me because I’m just like, don’t congratulate me on that,” she tells Refinery29. “If you’re going to congratulate me on my weight loss, also congratulate me every time I pee. Congratulate me every time I’m burping. Because my body actually has nothing to do with you, and I don’t really need your support for it.”
“My body will always be my body and always had been, and you have nothing to do with it and you’re kind of a stranger. But the way it works is that this is just my body. In the same way that this is just my face, this is just mine.”
Sidibe says that too many people on social media think that they get to comment on her appearance.
“The worst thing about Twitter is that everyone thinks their opinion is really important. And you’re 100% free to say something about it,” she says. “I have to know myself and I have to know my own boundaries and take in what I need. And what I don’t need I don’t take in. That’s how it’s gotta be with my body. That’s how it has to be with my hairstyle choice, my clothing choice. I take in what I want.”
Sidibe, who underwent weight loss surgery in 2016, told PEOPLE in March that it helped her find confidence.
“I think I saw my body as being outside of myself; it was like an enemy, beside me not in me. And now I’ve won,” she said. “I wish I hadn’t wasted so much time being mad at it. Because if I’d started treating it better sooner, I wouldn’t have spent so many years hating myself, I wouldn’t have allowed that negative energy to be around me. Life is really, truly all about choices and decisions. I wish I’d made the choice to love my body sooner. But I finally have.”