Taylor Swift hastily cuts ‘offensive’ scene from Anti-Hero music video

Taylor Swift has hastily removed a scene from her new music video after it sparked a firestorm of controversy online.

Taylor Swift removed a scene from her Anti-Hero music video after several health professionals and activists dubbed it “fatphobic”.

The segment showed the singer stepping on a scale that called her “fat” instead of displaying a numerical weight, Page Six reports.

While looking down at the scale, the 32-year-old sang the line, “I stare directly at the sun but never in the mirror,” before the camera panned to her looking at a second version of herself shaking her head no.

Stream more entertainment news live & on demand with Flash. 25+ news channels in 1 place. New to Flash? Try 1 month free. Offer available for a limited time only >

Taylor is shown fretting about her weight in the music video.

Swift, who wrote and directed the music video, tweeted last Friday that the visual for the song off her new Midnights album represented her “nightmare scenarios and intrusive thoughts”.

The singer, who previously struggled with an eating disorder, scrubbed the scene from the Apple Music version of the video after health professionals and critics slammed it as damaging.

“Taylor Swift’s music video, where she looks down at the scale where it says ‘fat,’ is a s**tty way to describe her body image struggles. Fat people don’t need to have it reiterated yet again that it’s everyone’s worst nightmare to look like us,” Shira Rosenbluth, a social worker with a specialisation in eating disorder treatment, wrote in a tweet.

The scale in the video just says ‘FAT’.

“Having an eating disorder doesn’t excuse fatphobia. It’s not hard to say, ‘I’m struggling with my body image today’ instead of I’m a fat, disgusting pig,” she said.

Another social media user wrote: “I saw someone say that she could have put ‘not thin enough’ and I think that would have been more in line with what she was trying to get across anyway on top of not being offensive.”

“The comment section does not pass the vibe check. It’s understandable that people have ED [eating disorders] and see their bodies as ugly, but fat isn’t a feeling; fat is a state of being. When people who have ED say, ‘Ew gross I feel so fat, I’m ugly,’ of course feelings about their bodies are real,” a third fan wrote.

The video shows Swift struggling with her inner demons.

“But it’s still enforcing the idea that fat is gross/bad. Her feelings can be valid, while still promoting fatphobia. This isn’t a competition. ED and fatphobia are both real, but just because someone has ED doesn’t mean that they should promote the idea that fat is gross.”

While many people agreed with the expert, several Swifties hopped to her defence.

“If she feels/felt fat, she is sharing her story. When I am above the weight I want (often), I feel fat. Someone saying, ‘You’re not fat,’ doesn’t make me feel not fat. I don’t get why someone feeling fat (no matter how unhealthy the thought) is wrong?” wrote one fan.

“Having insecurities is no longer allowed because it might make a fat person somewhere upset?” another critic tweeted.

The song is taken from Midnights, Swift’s latest top-selling album.

The performer notably opened up about suffering from an eating disorder in the past in her 2020 documentary, Taylor Swift: Miss Americana.

“It’s only happened a few times, and I’m not in any way proud of it. A picture of me where I feel like I looked like my tummy was too big, or … someone said that I looked pregnant … and that’ll just trigger me to just starve a little bit – just stop eating,” she admitted at the time.

This story originally appeared on Page Six and is republished here with permission

Originally published as Taylor Swift hastily cuts ‘offensive’ scene from Anti-Hero music video