\n Ashley Graham<\/span> Courtesy of Ashley Graham\/Instagram<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Not letting the haters get her down. Ashley Graham<\/strong><\/a> clapped back at a critic by encouraging her followers to share their own photos embracing their bodies.<\/p>\n On Monday, December 19, the model, 35, shared a photo of herself rocking a backless metallic dress. She gave a cheeky wink to the camera. \u201cQuote tweet this with a photo of you taking \u2018fat positivity\u2019 too far. I\u2019ll start,\u201d she captioned<\/a> the snap.<\/p>\n She initially posted the photos in her sexy dress on Friday, December 16. \u201cWhen it\u2019s @torikelly\u2019s 30th and she says 2000s, I show up in my bday freakum dress, ikyk \ud83d\ude1c\ud83d\ude1c (also the amount of tape I had to use to keep these girls up was obnoxious),\u201d Graham wrote via Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n In a since-deleted tweet, Twitter user Sameera Khan<\/strong>, who lists herself as an \u201canti-woke journalist\u201d in her bio, posted two pictures of Graham from her night at Tori Kelly<\/strong><\/a>\u2018s birthday party with the message: \u201cThe fat positivity movement is getting out of hand.\u201d<\/p>\n While replying to commenters, Khan referred to Lizzo<\/strong><\/a> and Graham as \u201cboth disgusting,\u201d and when a defender said Graham isn\u2019t fat, Khan said<\/a>, \u201cObese then.\u201d<\/p>\n Graham is used to the naysayers<\/a>. \u201cWhen I wanted to find resilience in myself \u2014 and where I did find it \u2014 was when I first moved to New York and I wanted to quit,\u201d she recalled to Glamour<\/em><\/a> in an April 2021 profile. \u201cI had been bombarded with an industry that kept telling me, \u2018You\u2019re not good enough. You\u2019re not skinny enough. You\u2019re not big enough.\u2019 I wanted to give up and I wanted to go home.\u201d<\/p>\n It was the model\u2019s mother<\/a> who kept her on track. She continued: \u201cI told my mom, \u2018That\u2019s it, I\u2019m coming back to Nebraska.\u2019 And she told me, \u2018No, Ashley. Your body is going to change someone\u2019s life.\u2019 I didn\u2019t understand what that meant then, but I understand what it means now because my body has changed an industry and it\u2019s changed so much. It\u2019s also taught me that I can do whatever I want to do, as long as I\u2019m doing the things that make me feel good and that are creating change.\u201d<\/p>\n Graham has been a champion for body diversity and acceptance. In 2016, she became the first size 14 model on the cover of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue<\/em><\/a>, and she became the first plus-size model to be on the cover of Vogue<\/em><\/a> in 2017.<\/p>\n \u201cI hate that I constantly have to discuss my body, because I don\u2019t know any man that has to do that,\u201d she told WSJ. Magazine<\/em><\/a> in a February 2021 cover story. \u201cBut what motivates me to continue to talk about my body is that I didn\u2019t have someone talking about their body when I was young. This is why I don\u2019t post like the \u2018perfect\u2019 Instagram photos. I keep it real and raw constantly because I want [people] to know that there are women with cellulite, with back fat, with stretch marks\u2026 There are a lot of curvy women, plus-size women, fat women, whatever you want to call them.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n![\"Ashley](\"https:\/\/www.usmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/Ashley-Graham-Claps-Back-at-Fat-Positivity-Slam-With-Sexy-Photo-Challenge-2.jpg?w=700&quality=86&strip=all\")
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\n Ashley Graham<\/span> Courtesy of Ashley Graham\/Instagram<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n