Daisy Ridley is the recent victim of a body shaming meme that says she is setting “unrealistic expectations” among young girls for being too thin.
Ridley shared a screen grab of the controversial Instagram post showing her Star Wars: Force Awakens character saying “Who cast me anyway? Don’t they know real women have curves?” in a speech bubble.
Daisy Ridley “will not apologise” for her body size after Instagram criticism. https://t.co/lMQpVoWQhc pic.twitter.com/GM20oPRVO7
— BBC Newsbeat (@BBCNewsbeat) March 10, 2016
Responding to her critic, Daisy Ridley explained that “’real women’ are all shapes and sizes, all ethnicities, all levels of brave, have families, don’t have families,” before adding she is a “’real woman’ like every other woman in this world.”
Ridley then deleted her response along with the original photo that started all the fuss and replaced it with a post urging everyone to be kind and tolerant of one another. She also called to her fans to refrain from sending hate messages to her basher.
In her new post, Daisy Ridley wrote: “It is much more hurtful to continue to slate other women than BE a woman, BE a character, BE whoever you want to be.”
She then added that she will not apologize for how she looks, what she says and how she lives her life. Ridley, proving that she was not setting “unrealistic expectations” among young girls, reiterated that like any other ordinary woman she is “striving to be the best version of myself even if I stumble along the way.”
Daisy Ridley hits back at body shamers: “I will not apologize for how I look.” https://t.co/lZGctZOnG5 pic.twitter.com/LuMTRdvEt4
— EntertainmentTonight (@etnow) March 10, 2016
The 23-year-old actress also revealed in her post that she received misogynistic comments after sharing a post in celebration of International Women’s Day.
Ridley ended her post with a reminder: “Remember that expression, if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all. Kindness isn’t going to cure the world of all its awfulness but it’s a good place to begin.”