Meghan Markle’s Vogue cover star Jameela Jamil celebrates unairbrushed photo of her ‘backfat’ on Good Place billboard
SHE’S the body positivity campaigner who Meghan Markle recently named among her 15 female “trailblazers” in her September issue of Vogue – and now Jameela Jamil appears to have won the war on airbrushing.
The former Radio-1-DJ-turned-actress has proudly posted a promotional image for The Good Place’s fourth and final season on Twitter where her appearance hasn’t been retouched.
Sharing the new images with her 886,000 followers, Jameela wrote: “Finally able to INSIST my image, even on billboards, isn’t ever airbrushed.
“I get backfat in Every. Single. Bra. And I used to hide/bin so many photos because of ‘muffin tops’/ ‘double chins’ / ‘imperfections’ because I never saw them on people on TV.”
She added in a separate tweet: “I’m aware this isn’t some huge victory, and not ‘brave’ but as someone who had such obsessive body dysmorphia and was so fixated on the embarrassment of what we perceive as ‘flaws’, this is just a little win for little anorexic teenage me.”
Last August, Jameela revealed on the podcast “Ways to Change the World” that she went three years without eating a meal as a teenager and claims her issues with food began when she was made to weigh herself in front of classmates at the age of 14.
After years of struggling with disordered eating and body dysmorphia, Jameela started the I Weigh movement to encourage women to “look beyond the flesh on our bones” and “weigh” themselves on who they are as a person.
Posting a selfie online, Jameela kickstarted the campaign by “weighing” herself in terms of her “great friends”, how she “loves” her job, how she is “financially independent” and how she “speaks out for women’s rights”.
Last year, the body positivity campaigner hit headlines when she branded Kim Kardashian a “terrible and toxic influence on young girls” for a sponsored post promoting appetite suppressing lollipops.
In March, Jameela slammed a heavily airbrushed picture of herself with lighter skin and no stretch marks and revealed that trying to live up to the image made her mentally ill.
As a result of her work on the I Weigh movement, Jameela was one of 15 women selected by Meghan Markle to appear on the front of Vogue’s Forces for Change-themed September issue.
After the cover was unveiled, Jameela told that she’d actually missed Meghan’s call three times as the number came up as “blocked” on her phone.
She said: “It was outrageous, she phoned me herself on my mobile phone and I missed the call three times. They must have thought I was playing it cool.”
When the Duchess of Sussex finally got through to Jameela, the actress added: “At one point the Duke Harry walked in during the phone call and he said hello on the phone. It was all very surreal.”
Back in May, Jameela’s I Weigh Instagram account was one 15 profiles Harry and Meghan followed – along with author Matt Haig and journalist Bryony Gordon – as part of their efforts to raise awareness for Mental Health Awareness Month.
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