Taylor Swift has edited a music video she directed days after its release after onlookers claimed it was insensitive. The pop star was specifically accused of "fatphobia" after the release of the video for "Anti-Hero," the first single from her new album Midnights, which showed her stepping on a scale and seeing the word "fat" in bold capital letters, per the Guardian. Swift, who's previously spoken about struggling with an eating disorder, wrote that the video was meant to portray her "nightmare scenarios and intrusive thoughts."
"I'm the problem, it's me," Swift sings in the song, which also speaks about "my covert narcissism." But "having an eating disorder is not an excuse for perpetuating fatphobia," which "is an evil that we need to confront," wrote Teen Vogue's Catherine Mhloyi. Swift "made a choice to explicitly name her demon, the fear of being called fat, which is fatphobia in its most literal sense," Mhloyi continued. "Fat in this moment is essentially equated with failure." Eating disorder therapist Shira Rosenbluth was also perturbed, tweeting that the scene "reiterated yet again that it’s everyone's worst nightmare" to be fat.
The controversy made its way to The View, where co-hosts were supportive of Swift, saying she was expressing how she felt personally. Of critics, Joy Behar asked, "Why are you wasting your time on this?" But "it's absurd to think that fat Swifties should just move on, should not be hurt at the reminder that society believes being fat is a bad thing," wrote Mhloyi. As of Thursday, the music video has been edited on YouTube and Apple Music so that "fat" no longer appears. (More Taylor Swift stories.)
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