Jameela Jamil is here to expose bullshit celebrity diet scams

By Randall Colburn  |  November 27, 2018 | 4:35pm
Aux Features Jameela Jamil

Jameela Jamil, who’s been known to critique the ultra-powerful, has often spoken out against what she calls “double agents of the patriarchy,” or women who profit off selling a patriarchal narrative to other women. Now, The Good Place actress has found a pitch-perfect illustration of her critique in the celebrities who use their massive platform to shill dangerous diet products that a) may as well be sold on Infowars and b) they most certainly do not use.

Jamil’s remarks were catapulted into the stratosphere this past weekend when Cardi B responded to the actress calling her out for shilling a “detox” tea. “GOD I hope all these celebrities shit their pants in public, the way the poor women who buy this nonsense upon their recommendation do,” Jamil wrote on Twitter.

Cardi responded on Instagram, cracking that she’d never shit her pants in public “cause there’s public bathrooms everywhere,” as well as “bushes.”

Jamil wasn’t so amused by her comments, choosing instead to point out how Cardi can’t even seem to remember the name of the product she’s selling.

Jamil’s connection to the issue is personal. “I was the teenager who starved herself for years, who spent all her money on these miracle cures and laxatives and tips from celebrities on how to maintain a weight that was lower than what my body wanted it to be,” she wrote on Twitter yesterday. “I was sick, I have had digestion and metabolism problems for life.”

That’s why it angers her to see celebrities stumping for the snake oil, which, at their core, perpetuate male beauty standards and open the door to eating disorders. She’s called out the Kardashians, Amber Rose, and Iggy Azalea, noting that its disingenuous to say these products can help users look like them when they also have “nutritionists, personal chefs, personal trainers, airbrushers, and plastic surgeons.”

She’s faced plenty of blowback from fans, as well as from those who she’s “vilifying other women.” For Jamil, however, the problem is a cultural and systemic one. “I am not going to stop coming after all the people, men and women, who perpetuate this gross culture of forcing women to remain small and doll-like in order to be accepted by society.”

And, seriously, avoid that shit. Nobody needs that much diarrhea.

 
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