Taylor Swift, 29, is sending props to Jameela Jamil, 33, for standing up for women in a way she believes is going to help change the world for the better. The singer mentioned the British actress when talking about the body neutrality movement, which encourages women and people in general to not focus on their bodies or how they look and to not judge others based on their bodies, during her Beats 1 interview with Zane Lowe on Oct. 30.
“Thank God we’ve had #MeToo movements and moments where we’re looking at ourselves as a society and we’re looking at internalized misogyny. We’re looking at the way we treat critiquing women’s bodies,” Taylor said in the interview. “We have amazing women out there like Jameela Jamil saying, ‘I’m not trying to spread body positivity. I’m trying to spread body neutrality where I can sit here and not think about what my body is looking like’.”
Taylor went on to talk about her own experiences in feeling judged, especially during the time she first gained momentum in the music industry in her early 20s. The “Lover” crooner admitted she felt her talent was being overlooked because the public chose to focus on her dating life more than anything else.
“When I was, like, 23 and people were just kind of reducing me to … kind of making slideshows of my dating life and putting people in there that I’d sat next to at a party once and deciding that my songwriting was like a trick rather than a skill and a craft,” she explained. “In a way, it’s figuring out how to completely minimize that skill by taking something that everyone in their darkest, darkest moments loves to do, which is just to slut-shame, you know? That happened to me at a very young age, so that was a bit hard. That was one of the first times I was like, ‘Wow, this is not fair.’ ”
Fortunately, Taylor feels more positive about the state of the industry now and it’s all thanks to powerful female influencers like Jameela. “We have made incredible progress,” she said. “We’ve made incredible strides and I can look back at those lessons I learned when I was younger and I really truly don’t think I did anything wrong by having a normal dating life in my early twenties.”
Jameela is known for being outspoken when it comes to the actions of some other female influencers out there, so it’s no surprise Taylor would mention her when talking about making a difference. The cheeky beauty has often spoken out against the Kardashians and some of the ways they promote themselves. In Mar., she publicly expressed her disappointment in Kim Kardashian, Khloe Kardashian, and Kris Jenner for promoting “diet teas” in paid advertisements on social media.
“Essentially, ‘[F***] the young, impressionable people, or those struggling with eating disorders, we want the money.’ I have been given these same opportunities to [promote] this stuff, and I don’t do it, so they don’t have to. Thank you, next,” she fearlessly wrote in a tweet.