20 Celebrity Bodies We Need to Stop Talking About

Powerhouse singer and nine-time Grammy winner Adele was criticized by Chanel designer Karl Lagerfeld when he publicly stated, “she is a little too fat, but she has a beautiful face and a divine voice.” The singer, who’s been on a hiatus from the studio since giving birth to her son in 2012, spoke to Vogue about her body image saying: “I’ve seen people where it rules their lives, you know, who want to be thinner or have bigger boobs, and how it wears them down. And I just don’t want that in my life.” 

First called “too fat” for Hollywood, American Idol finalist Jennifer Hudson made headlines when she dropped more than 80 pounds as a spokeswoman for Weight Watchers only to be followed by critics calling her too thin. The Oscar and Golden Globe winner addressed her relationship with food in her autobiography I Got This: How I Changed My Ways and Lost What Weighed Me Down, writing “Food was meant to be used as fuel for our bodies. If we are using it for any other reasons, it is time to take a step back and ask ourselves what’s up.” 

Ever since Titanic launched Kate Winslet into the spotlight, her weight has been a popular topic of discussion. In 2003, when she appeared on the cover of GQ looking trimmed down, she issued a statement decrying the photo as fake, saying, “I just didn’t want people to think I was a hypocrite and that I’d suddenly lost 30 pounds or whatever.” Her body has been under even more scrutiny since her third pregnancy. But the actress has always stuck to her guns about being real. “I look like people that walk down the street. I don’t have perfect boobs, I don’t have zero cellulite—of course I don’t—and I’m curvy. If that is something that makes women feel empowered in any way, that’s great.” 

Posh Spice has long-been circled in rumors of starvation diets, surgery, and eating disorders as people speculate how she maintains her slim figure. While the singer-turned-fashion-designer and mother is fairly tight-lipped about the subject, she did say that she’s not perfect and tends to get “obsessive” about her six-days-a-week fitness routine. And though she’s scrutinized about her weight, the star told Glamour, “I’m not a supermodel. I make the best of what I’ve got. I work out to look the best that I can, but I’m no Gisele.”

With a highly publicized Weight Watchers deal to lose her baby weight, Jessica Simpson’s pregnancy weight gain and loss unfolded in the tabloids and on TV commercials. Motherhood has obviously taught her to embrace her ever-changing figure, though, revealing in a new ad: “My body, like my life, is a work in progress.” 

Oprah Winfrey defined the relationship between celebrity scales and the media, being one of the first to publicly put her own dieting and body image struggles up for discussion. She’s constantly preached acceptance, saying, “The next time you look in the mirror, try to let go of the story line that says you’re too fat or too sallow, too ashy or too old, your eyes are too small or your nose it too big; just look in the mirror and see your face.”

Criticized for not looking emaciated enough for her role as Katniss in The Hunger Games, Jennifer Lawrence has become the unofficial poster girl for body image acceptance. In Barbara Walters’ 10 Most Fascinating People of 2013 special, Lawrence spoke out against fat shaming. “I just think it should be illegal to call somebody fat on TV,” she said. “If we’re regulating cigarettes and sex and cuss words because of the effect it has on our younger generation, why aren’t we regulating things like calling somebody fat?”

Just like her late mother-in-law, Princess Diana, the Duchess of Cambridge is subject to media scrutiny over every step she takes. Kate Middleton’s weight loss for the ‘wedding of the century’ to Prince William plus her weight gain during pregnancy was widely covered by the press. But Kate the Great, as some refer to her, ignored the post-baby body pressure the day after giving birth, revealing that she still had a bump, something hardly seen in Hollywood. 

The star and creator of HBO’s Girls made a splash with her nudity on the first season of the show, sending her figure into a tornado of analysis. This year, speculation went a tasteless step further when the feminist site Jezebel proposed they’d pay $10,000 for unretouched, photos of Lena Dunham’s Vogue photos. They pictures were eventually released and showed hardly a change in the star’s figure. She’s openly discussed her own body image issues, particularly being what she’s called a ‘chubby teenager.’ But she refuses to give in to critics, still baring almost all for the camera and explaining that the Jezebel stunt was “messed up.” “They’ve made such a kind of monumental error in their approach to feminism.” 

The singer and host of The Voice has debuted a number of various body types since her Mickey Mouse years. Through pregnancies and various roles in the spotlight, the star slammed rumors of liposuction or other plastic surgery revealing her most recent weight loss came from a low-carb diet and lots of yoga. Through it all, though, she’s kept a positive attitude about it, revealing to Marie Claire that she’s been criticized for being on both sides of the scale. “It’s noise I block out automatically. I love my body. My boyfriend loves my body. My son is healthy and happy, so that’s all that matters to me.”

The youngest of the original Kardashian sisters has had a difficult time with the press covering her body, calling her “the fat, ugly sister,” which she revealed made her question her own body image. She went on to lose weight as a spokeswoman for Quick Trim but still fluctuates with her weight, telling Us Weekly, “If I can make other people feel good about their ups and downs in weight, then I want to be that person.” 

The star, who rose to fame on The Office and now on her own show The Mindy Project, has long since battled the body haters, mostly with humor. Her show’s character constantly makes fitness and food jokes, one time saying, “I am not overweight. I fluctuate between chubby and curvy.” But recently, when Kaling was chosen to grace one of four covers for ELLE's women in TV issue, backlash ensued as she was the only woman whose cover featured a close-up shot instead of a body shot. Kaling extinguished the fire by tweeting: ‘I love my @ELLEmagazine cover. It made me feel glamorous & cool. And if anyone wants to see more of my body, go on thirteen dates with me.”

The winner of The Biggest Loser caused quite a stir when she revealed a waif frame and that she’d lost 60 percent of her body weight. Controversy swarmed Frederickson and the show with critics speculating she clearly had an eating disorder.  But Frederickson explained to People magazine that she was healthy while admitting she may have been “too enthusiastic” about her training. 

Supermodel Chrissy Teigen has come under constant scrutiny of her body, face, and teeth. How does she handle the haters? By embracing them. Teigen often retweets mean comments, drawing attention to the ludicrous nature of the critics. She also keeps a blog at sodelushious.com, where the tag line is: “Personal random ramblings from a girl who loves bacon and can’t be fat,” where she posts food pictures and calls out her haters. 

The Oscar-nominated actor, who rose to fame as an overweight teenager in Superbad, went to a nutritionist in 2011 after starring in Moneyball and dropped nearly 40 pounds. He’s said that he started ‘physically running instead of emotionally running’ and worked his way up to 100 pushups a day to lose the weight. But still, his critics are abound and the weight loss has been the butt of many a joke. Since the initial trim down, the star’s weight has fluctuated, prompting harsh speculation from the media. 

Supermodel Kate Upton drew criticism for being “fat” in her famous Sports Illustrated spread and a Victoria’s Secret booker told The New York Times that she was “like a footballer’s wife, with the too-blond hair and the kind of face that anyone with enough money can go out and buy.” But she’s made it her goal to stay true to her roots and atypical model body saying, “I’m sure every designer has a certain person in mind who they would ideally like to wear their clothes, but the problem is that a lot of the time that person doesn’t actually exist, unless she is a 15-year-old model.” The model trains with David Kirsch, whose plan is to keep Upton’s curve in place while toning her in the right spots. 

The curvy country star has admitted that she loves to eat and feels best when she’s toned, not flabby. But when she debuted a slimmer figure at the Country Music Awards last year fans took to social media alleging she underwent weight loss surgery. The star took to her website to get the truth out: “Though I NEVER care what the tabloids have to say about me…I wanted to address this certain story they are running this week and set the record straight. I DID NOT have surgery to lose weight. That is ridiculous. I lost my weight the healthy and good old-fashioned way. Watching what I eat and working out with my trainer Bill Crutchfield….I am proud to be a normal-size girl and I want to encourage everyone to be confident at any size.”

The dreamboat actor had people talking when photographers captured his gaunt frame while playing AIDS victim Ron Woodruff in Dallas Buyers Club. And though Tina Fey joked about the actor’s drastic dip in size at the Golden Globes, the Oscar nominee told The Radio Times about the terrifying side effects of his weight loss: “As soon as I hit 143 pounds, I started losing my eyesight…I would do five push-ups and be sore. I would run 30 feet and my legs would lock up.” The movie’s success has menat a lot to the actor, who revealed that he’s happy “that people’s reaction means the film quickly became something more than the 'Matthew McConaughey got skinny' movie.”

The American Idol winner has always been under inspection for her body and lost nearly 20 pounds in early 2013, telling Cosmopolitan, “There’s not a fad diet. I was working with a trainer. You’d be amazed the amount of weight you can drop by halving your portions.” And while her weight has gone up and done since, she’s been stern on her standards, especially since announcing her pregnancy, proclaiming "Everybody calls me fat all the time, so I can’t wait to have a reason, instead of everybody just being a jerk.” 

The E! News host and breast cancer survivor has dealt with difficult media attention for her body, especially after undergoing a double mastectomy after a 2011 cancer diagnosis and admitted a ‘hate relationship’ with her breasts. “I was mad at my body,” she said during an episode of Style’s Giuliana and Bill show. “I felt like my body had let me down.” She’s also been the center of scrutiny over how thin she is, managing hateful comments on social media about how she should eat more. “I don’t respond but so many people get really upset…people say, ’She’s been through cancer.’ Really? That’s what you’re going to put out?”