'I WAS THE SAME SIZE THEN AS NOW'
Joe McElderry speaks out over THAT buff selfie on This Morning and reveals he was never as big as trolls made out
The X Factor winner stunned fans with a picture of his impressive abs earlier this week
JOE McElderry has revealed he was never as big as trolls accused him of being - just days after showing off his impressive abs in a new selfie.
The X Factor winner stunned his fans by showing off his body while performing in Joseph and his Technicolour Dreamcoat.
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Posting a picture in his loincloth Joe's abs were clearly on show but, during an appearance on Wednesday's This Morning, he revealed he is around the same size now as he was in 2015 when he went on Lorraine and was accused of being fat.
He said: "It was odd.
"I literally came off air and an hour or so after I was going to rehearsals and my phone started going crazy with Twitter notifications.
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"On that day I wasn’t much different to what I am now but it was just an unflattering photo.
"People went crazy for it, it went everywhere."
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The 25-year-old added how he had never experienced bodyshaming in his career until that point and he refused to accept it when he became the target.
The day after his appearance on Lorraine, he hit back on social media with a selfie showing off his body and during his chat with Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield he explained why he did it.
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He said: "What happened is, what they were doing...they put two photos together, one from X Factor - I was a kid, everybody grows up.
"You grow into your body. You can’t say people don’t grow into their bodies.
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"When it's an image that’s being depicted that isn’t true, its not a nice message to send out and my name’s tagged to it? I was like 'no way'.
"If I was that size I would have owned it and said 'yes that’s what I look like' but I didn't."
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Speaking about getting back into the famous loincloth to play Joseph Joe admitted he had never been comfortable with his top off the first time he played the role.
He said: "I used to be point blank 'no way', I could think of nothing worse than being topless but when Joseph came round the first thing I thought was 'oh no, loincloth'.
"But I’ve become so used to it, I spend half the day like that."
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