Dumb People Are Asking, "What Happened To Nelly Furtado?" After Her Latest Performance Went Viral
The answer is: NOTHING. SHE IS JUST EXISTING.
Were you even a millennial if you didn’t blast “Maneater” and “Promiscuous Girl” in your college dorm before going out to some gross frat party? Were you even a moody tween if you weren’t in your childhood bedroom wishing you, too, were like a bird wanting to fly away?
Pop icon Nelly Furtado and her music have been there for me during some of the most pivotal moments of my adolescence. So, when people are bugging her and saying mean things about her appearance and changing body, I take personal offense.
Recently, a video of Furtado singing at the Boardmasters Festival went viral, and not for good reason. The comment sections on the clips were disheartening, misogynistic, and all-around rude.
In the video, the “I’m Like a Bird” singer, 46, showed off her amazing curves in ruffled olive green hot pants and halter top, along with embellished knee-high boots.
The first video includes hundreds of horrific comments that I wouldn’t want any young girl reading.
“Did she take her maneater song literally?” writes one commenter.
“Wasn’t expecting that build,” another said.
A third wrote: “I’m like a bird… yeah big bird.”
In a response to the criticism, Instagram user and body confidence coach, @alexlight_ldn, remarked on the internet trolls coming after our beloved Nelly.
“She's aged. She's changed. She exists a body that isn't here to serve your nostalgia or your comfort, but here's the real question, why is a woman's worth still measured against how little she's changed from her 20s?” she asks.
“Why do we treat wrinkles, aging and the effects of time itself like crimes, but only when they happen to women?”
She continues, “So what the hell has happened? She's been alive for several years in a world that tells women that their expiry date is 25. She's been told to disappear, to shrink, to stay in a body that society finds more palatable, and she said no. And this isn't really about her body, it's about control and about a culture that fears women who don't apologize for existing. So, what the hell has happened? She's free and maybe that's what scares people.”
MIC DROP.
This isn’t the first time that Furtado has been met with criticism over her very normal body.
In January, Furtado addressed negative comments about her body while posing in an orange bikini on Instagram.
“This year I became aware of the aesthetic pressure of my work in a brand new way, while simultaneously I experienced new levels of self-love and genuine confidence from within,” she wrote.
“For whoever cares, I have never had any face or body surgeries or augmentation, besides for veneers on the top row of my teeth, quite recently,” she continued. “So far, I have not had any face or lip injections or fillers of any kind.”
Furtado urged her fans to “express yourself freely, celebrate your individuality and know that it’s perfectly OK to be OK with what you see in the mirror, and it’s also OK to want something different.”
“HAVE A BODY NEUTRAL 2025, BUT MOST IMPORTANTLY, LOVE WITH EVERY INCH OF YOUR HEART ♥”
