17 Celebs Who Called Out Hollywood's Ridiculous Demands For Them To Lose Weight

It's no secret that Hollywood hasn't exactly been the healthiest place to be over the years when it comes to body image. It's not exactly news that many of our favorite stars feel a whole lot of pressure to look a certain way, with being slim and toned usually top of the list when it comes to an ideal body type. Plenty of the biggest celebrities in the world have spoken out about the expectations put upon them to look a certain way, with many revealing that they've been told point-blank they need to slim down to play a role or compete in the music or modeling industries.

But not everyone's bowing to the pressure. There are a slew of famous faces out there who have spoken out about Hollywood's often unhealthy expectations when it comes to how they should look, with plenty even flat out refusing to shed the pounds just because someone else told them to. From Jennifer Lopez to Kelly Clarkson, here are some of the very best quotes from stars who know they're perfect as they are, thank you very much.

Jennifer Lopez has the killer body most people dream of, but she's admitted she was repeatedly asked to lose a few pounds in the early days of her career. "They'd say, 'You should lose a few pounds,' or 'You should do this or do that.' It finally got to the point that I was like, 'This is who I am. I'm shaped like this,'" she hit back to InStyle in 2018, admitting she saw nothing wrong with the way she looked because she knew so many women shaped like her growing up. "They were all beautiful to me," she shared, adding it was her mom and grandmother who really made her comfortable with her body. "Being curvy or not being six feet tall was never a bad thing; it was actually something that was celebrated."

Jenny From the Block actually once even stopped working with a manager who suggested she lost weight, keeping that "Booty" she so proudly sings about. "I was just so infuriated that somebody said you couldn't have a little extra meat on you — because I was by no means fat! That was so mean and closed-minded," she told Glamour while being interviewed by Jane Fonda in 2011. "I was like: 'No, this is who I am and this is the type of woman that I grew up with and it was beautiful and there's no reason to be anybody but myself.'"

Someone else who's made it very clear they won't be dropping the pounds to fit in with traditional Hollywood beauty standards? The uber body confident Lizzo. The pop superstar has spoken out about her curves on multiple occasions, including in 2022 when she admitted to Vanity Fair she wanted to rid the world of the stigma that losing weight is always a bad thing. "It sucks that we associate weight gain with the negative thing that causes it. It's mixing this beautiful thing that's food — and nourishing ourselves with it, but it's the stress that's the bad thing, not the 20 pounds," she explained. The star revealed that she'd changed her views on weight loss and gain, noting, "I feel very lucky because I don't feel that weight gain is bad anymore. Nor is weight loss — it's neutral. And food is fun. I love eating, and I have a chef now, and I'm not thinking about it. I had a brownie last night."

The star has also clapped back at the body shamers several other times, including in concert. In 2022, she rocked a t-shirt that read "My body by choice" and told fans during a Canadian show after Kanye "Ye" West called her out over her weight, "I'm minding my fat, Black, beautiful business." You go, girl!

Kelly Clarkson has also been very vocal about her weight over the years, admitting she actually felt the most pressure from industry insiders to drop the pounds when she weighed the least. "It was more of magazines shoved in front of you and, 'This is what you're competing with and we've got to compete with it.' I can't compete with that ... That's not who I am. That's who they are. We're all different and it's okay," she told Glamour U.K. during a 2020 interview. "I fought more when I was thinner than I do now, because now I just walk in and I just look at them like, 'I dare you to say something. I'm happy in my life. I'll work on me in my time!'" She added that she now gets her gigs because of her electric personality, and is happy just the way she is. Miss Independent, indeed!

Clarkson has also been candid about the fact that when she was at her thinnest, she wasn't exactly at her happiest. "When I was really skinny I wanted to kill myself. I was miserable, like inside and out, for four years of my life. But no one cared, because aesthetically you make sense," she told Attitude. Clarkson later clarified she didn't mean she felt suicidal. "I've never contemplated suicide because of my weight. I said people had no idea I was unhappy oddly enough because I appeared healthy," she tweeted.

If you or anyone you know is having suicidal thoughts, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline​ by dialing 988 or by calling 1-800-273-TALK (8255)​.

Former "Pretty Little Liars" actor Ashley Benson is another star who's hit back after being told to lose weight. Despite feeling perfectly healthy, the star told Health in 2016 that she would regularly get told she needed to be thinner — but has always refused. "I'm just sitting here like, 'Wait, what? Do you want a skeleton?'" she shared of her reaction. "I feel good. I don't want to lose 20 pounds, because I don't need to." She added that she was actually a size less than she considered to be healthy for her when she was asked to get even slimmer, noting, "I think that all of these sizes are healthy."

When it comes to eating, Benson doesn't deprive herself. She told Delish back in 2016 that she almost always starts the day with a donut — or has one around midday. She also has a penchant for things that aren't exactly the go-tos if she was about to listen to the naysayer's suggestion of losing weight. "I love cheeseburgers, tacos, pizza, pasta — all the things that are kind of bad for you," she said.

In 2019, Sam Smith got candid on Instagram about their weight struggles and how they were taking a stand when it came to their body. The British singer, who uses they/them pronouns, posted a shirtless photo of themselves at the beach. "In the past if I have ever done a photo shoot with so much as a t-shirt on, I have starved myself for weeks in advance and then picked and prodded at every picture and then normally taken the picture down. Yesterday I decided to fight the f**k back. Reclaim my body and stop trying to change this chest and these hips and these curves that my mum and dad made and love so unconditionally," Smith wrote in the caption.

Thankfully, the star is now much happier with themselves and promotes a much more positive sense of body image. "I looked to role models in the body world. Every time I went to the pool I felt self-conscious, but I forced myself to take my top off," they explained to The Times in 2023. "It paid off because I now have the opposite of body dysmorphia. I look fabulous." Heck yes!

Jennifer Lawrence shared that she's no supporter of dieting for a role while speaking to Elle in 2012. "I'm never going to starve myself for a part... I don't want little girls to be like, 'Oh, I want to look like Katniss, so I'm going to skip dinner," she shared, referring to her "The Hunger Games" character, Katniss Everdeen. "That's something I was really conscious of during training, when you're trying to get your body to look exactly right. I was trying to get my body to look fit and strong — not thin and underfed."

She also spoke about being asked to lose weight for the hugely popular book-turned-movie series in 2022. Lawrence opened up on Variety's "Actors on Actors" series about what happened when she landed the role, admitting one of the biggest points of conversation was about how much weight she was going to lose. "Along with me being young and growing and not able to be on a diet ... I don't know if I want all of the girls who are going to dress up as Katniss to feel like they can't because they're not a certain weight," she explained of not focusing on being thinner for the role. "And I can't let that seep into my brain either."

During a joint interview with Variety in 2017, Kirsten Dunst revealed that director Sofia Coppola encouraged her to lose weight to star in the 2017 movie "Beguiled," in which she played teacher Miss Edwina Morrow. But Dunst refused. The star explained she had no desire to change her body and wanted to make the most of being able to enjoy some local food while they filmed in the south. "It's so much harder when you're 35 and hate working out," Dunst shared of losing weight, admitting she was chowing down on fried chicken and McDonald's. "So I'm like, 'We have no options! I'm sorry I can't lose weight for this role." And although it was Coppola's suggestion, Dunst shared that the director was very understanding about her decision.

The star also opened up about how she managed to avoid the trappings of unhealthy body image to Net-a-Porter in 2019, because she grew up around celebrity. "I have a very healthy perspective of being an actress," she shared, admitting she hadn't exercised since giving birth to her son, Ennis, months earlier. "I'm not one of those people who says, 'Ohhh I have to get my abs back.' I feel like I've established myself as an actress. I have a healthy amount of vanity that hasn't tipped into something really destructive. I want to find parts where I don't have to be that person, and I have plenty of role models. Look at Patricia Arquette."

Look at Patricia Arquette we will, as the actor is a total inspiration when it comes to staying true to yourself. Arquette has revealed that she's missed out on more than one role because she refused to diet for it. "I remember a director telling my agent that it would be great if I could lose 10 pounds as long as my boobs didn't get smaller. I didn't want to lose 10 pounds and I didn't," she told Fortune in 2015. "There were times I turned down movies when I needed work financially, when I had a newborn, because the roles were inappropriate, or the director was inappropriate or unethical," she added.

Arquette also opened up during The Hollywood Reporter's Drama Actress Roundtable in 2019 about an argument she once had with a producer on the TV series "Medium," on which she played the role of Allison DuBois. The character was a mom of three who wasn't focused on her physical appearance, though Arquette was still asked to lose weight to play her. "I was like, 'This lady is a mother, she's married, she's got three kids. No.' But there's that expectation of being beautiful, of looking a certain way. Like, 'Okay, you could be 40, but you've got to be a 40 who looks 30.'"

Ballet dancer Misty Copeland's body is at the core of her profession, but that doesn't mean she's going to be told what to do with it. The athlete claimed to Self in 2016 that American Ballet Theatre once told her that she needed to "lengthen" her muscles, which she took as meaning she needed to lose some weight. But instead of conforming to other people's standards of what her body should look like, Copeland knew she was perfect the way she was and instead hit up Krispy Kreme. "Being told to lose weight, and being African-American, not having anyone else around who looked like me, caused me so much doubt," she admitted, revealing she would order two dozen boxes of donuts at a time. The star later learned how to improve her diet to help her be the best she could be, but still won't ever lose weight just because someone else told her to. "You can't change your body to become something it isn't. I eat what I enjoy, just not too much of it," she shared.

Copeland also spoke out about being told to lose weight in her 2017 book, "Ballerina Body" (via People). "It was a lot harder hearing from the staff that I needed to lose weight. I had never heard those words used with me," she recalled, realizing the things that were important was being healthier, not just being focused on the number on the scale.

Model Kate Upton is another gorgeous and healthy star who's admitted she's been told to lose weight during her career, but realized that dropping the pounds just wouldn't be true to who she is. Upton opened up about being told to change her body during a 2016 interview with Glamour, sharing, "At first I tried to diet to become their image, but eventually I realized that it wasn't realistic — that this is just the shape of my body. So I had to block them out." She added of those who tried to change her appearance, "I think that the people who are the loudest about wanting to change you are the people with the least amount of vision and creativity." Upton explained much of her steadfastness when it comes to her body confidence came from her upbringing. "It was considered a great thing to have a curvy body to fill out a bathing suit. For that to be a negative was so confusing to me," she shared.

Four years later, Upton fronted a campaign to help others see it's all about feeling confident and strong — not the number on the scale. "Instead of beating yourself up about the number on the scale, you notice when you get stronger," she told Health. "It's a healthier mind-set, one that took me a while to get to. That's really what I wanted to share with others."

It's long been known that the world of modeling has long been rife with pressure to look a certain way, but supermodel Karlie Kloss isn't interested in all of that. The former Victoria's Secret Angel has admitted that, on the very same day while appearing in front of casting agents, she was told that she was too fat and too thin. She explained during a Cannes Lions chat alongside Joanna Coles, Hearst chief content officer, in 2017 that she wasn't interested in changing herself to impress them. "I don't want to please anyone but myself," the star hit back (via Page Six). She also admitted that she wanted to see more designers, particularly women in the fashion industry, create more clothes for a wider range of different shapes and sizes.

Kloss also explained to Vogue in 2018 that she actually started losing big modeling jobs when her body changed. "I started taking birth control, and my body became more womanly — hips and thighs appeared. I started losing jobs," she recalled. "I wasn't getting booked for the runway; designers stopped working with me. It felt as if my world had been turned upside down." It was then that she decided to stop trying to emulate the bodies of her fellow models like Gisele Bündchen. "I realized it was time for me to do me, to embrace the things that make me who I am," she said.

"The Lord of the Rings" actor Liv Tyler has admitted that she too has been asked to lose weight for work before, but won't be bowing to Hollywood pressures — even if it means losing out on roles. The star shared her advice on never changing your body to fit in with someone's standards while divulging a few life tips with Belfast Telegraph all the way back in 2007. "Don't lose weight when you don't need to. I've been told that if I lose weight I'd have more work, but I refuse to submit to Hollywood standards," she shared. "To the rest of the world I am slim, and I like the way I am."

The star has also spoken out about what a lot of her friends in the industry have dealt with when it comes to looking a certain way — particularly models. "I remember Linda [Evangelista] telling me that when she was a model [in the '90s], a sample size was a six or an eight. Now a sample dress size is a zero or a two. That's pretty alarming," Tyler told Glamour in 2007. "There's a lot of pressure on [the models]. It's not healthy."

In a story we absolutely love, actor Hayley Atwell revealed that her "Brideshead Revisited" co-star Emma Thompson very much had her back after she was asked to lose weight to star in the movie. Speaking to First Post in 2008, Atwell recalled a time when Thompson inviting her over for dinner almost resulted in her quitting the movie. "I went round to Emma's one night and she was getting very angry that I wasn't eating all the food she was giving me. I told her why and she hit the roof," Atwell recalled of the moment she let Thompson know the producers had asked her to drop a few pounds (via The Cut). Atwell claimed Thompson was livid that she'd been asked to change her body for the role she called the producers at Miramax Films personally and actually threatened to stop shooting unless they went back on their decision. Which they did. Go, Emma Thompson!

Thompson also spoke about the incident on the Swedish chat show "Skavlan," per Grazia, that same year, though she didn't name Atwell by name. "The producer said to her, 'Will you lose some weight?' And she was absolutely exquisite. I said to them, 'If you speak to her about this again, on any level, I will leave this picture. You are never to do that.'"

Former "Glee" star Alex Newell explained to StyleCaster that they actually lost out on a role in the musical "Kinky Boots" because the director wasn't happy with their weight. "They said my weight would inhibit me from playing the role, which is not true, but to each their own," the star, who uses all pronouns, shared. "I was like, 'This is a show where they're encouraging you to be who you want to be. Don't let them tell you who you should be,'" they said. Newell added that they were particularly surprised about what they'd been told because the musical is all about being different, noting, "There's no limitation. My weight does not prescribe what I cannot do." Newell also went on to slam those who discriminate against others because of their weight or anything that may be different about them, sadly pointing out, "We're in a community where we want so much to be accepted yet we don't accept each other."

Newell has continued to hold their head high, no matter what anyone might have to say. "I've been called fat in a room, I've been called too gay, I've been called too Black, too effeminate," they told Variety in 2020. "I've been called everything to my face, and none of that have I ever let affect me."

While filming "The Legend of Tarzan" in London, Margot Robbie wasn't going to let a little thing like shooting a major movie stop her from having a good time when it came to tasting the local cuisine. She told TV Week that she actually refused to diet for the role (she played Tarzan's wife, Jane) because she wanted to be able to enjoy plenty of British food while living it up across the pond. "It was my first time living in London properly and I wanted to try every pub. It's the 19th century [in the movie] — if she's got a bit of weight on her, it's probably a good thing," the actor confessed (via Yahoo! Movies). Robbie even pointed out to producers that there wouldn't have been gyms back then and healthy diets weren't well-researched like they are today, so it wasn't unrealistic for the character to be carrying a little more weight. "I'm not going to look thin just for the sake of it," she added.

Robbie previously shared she tries not to put too much focus on dieting and exercise, as long as she feels healthy. "[I'm] walking the line between having as much fun as possible and continuing to take care of myself," she explained to The Telegraph in 2019. "Eating well and exercise need to be prevalent in my life so that I can feel my best, but I don't want to dwell on it too much."

Florence Pugh admitted that, when she first started out in Hollywood, she heard a lot of criticism about her body. The actor landed a gig when she was 19 years old, but thought at one point Hollywood may not be for her because she was asked to change so much about herself — including her weight. "All the things that they were trying to change about me — whether it was my weight, my look, the shape of my face, the shape of my eyebrows — that was so not what I wanted to do, or the industry I wanted to work in," she told The Telegraph in 2022. Thankfully, she stayed true to herself and didn't change her body, before seeing major success in big projects like "Little Women." Pugh even admitted that finding roles where she didn't have to change herself helped her to fall back in love with cinema.

That same year, Pugh vowed never to lose weight for a role. "It was expected that you would be on whatever diet that you needed to be on, and for me, that was just shocking because I'd never done that before ... I think I definitely put my foot down in that aspect," she told Vogue of the earlier days of her career. "I'm never losing weight to look fantastic for a role. It's more like: How would this character have lived? What would she be eating?"

Queen Latifah opened up on "Red Table Talk" in 2022 about being told to lose weight when she appeared on the 1990s show "Living Single." The ever-fabulous star revealed she and her co-stars, Kim Fields, Kim Coles, and Erika Alexander, were all told to get slimmer by the production team, but Latifah had an inspiring clap back. "We're on the number one show among Black and Latino households in America, and you're telling us we need to lose weight. Maybe you're the one with the problem," she told the higher ups. Latifah noted the group didn't start dropping the pounds under instruction because the show would've been affected. "Four different women, four different shades, four different types. We looked like four women who would live in Brooklyn, and that's who we were supposed to be representing," she said.

That same year, Latifah told People she turns down roles that call for destructive weight loss or gain. "If I have to do something that is going to be completely unhealthy for me, then that's not the job for me," she said. "I need to be okay with me. If I'm okay then I feel like I can do anything. But if I'm not okay, I have to say something. Like, it's time to take a break, stop, cut." All Hail the Queen!