This past episode of Empire showed Gabourey Sidibe’s character Becky having a hot and heavy moment with MC J Poppa (Mo McRae). While the scene was refreshing, as it showed the reality that fuller women have no problem with intimacy, that didn’t stop the fat-shamers from rearing their heads.
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She admitted to a few nerves, but was quick to say, “It was the most fun I’ve ever had”. But I felt sexy and handsome and I felt like I was doing a good job.
“I’m really, really proud of it”, she told People of the sex scene. News. “I wanted to see it and millions of other people wanted to see it. Those people don’t matter to me, to her, to anybody else”.
You could nearly hear the memes and tweets popping all over the internet at the same time.
The Oscar-nominated actress, 32, told Entertainment Weekly she was too busy working to check criticism on Twitter.
What she’s referring to is the cruel meme one social media user created with a screen shot from the love scene underneath the words, “Damn, a few of you can’t even get a text back”.
A few commenters on the posts added to the hate, writing things like “yuck” and “now they’ve gone too far” about the episode. Nonetheless, she’s proud of the end result.
Since Empire has been getting lots of buzz as it is, the show has been using every opportunity to portray a few important messages, whether it’s about the reality of bipolar disorder or sharing love regardless of size.
“I think she is handling it very well, all to her. She is wonderful”.
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The actress hit back at this assumption that somehow viewers were more entitled to a love life than a plus-sized woman is. It’s never happened…And I’m not sure why it hasn’t happened, but I hope there’s more to come.
