Brandy broke her silence on comments regarding her weight in a new Instagram post.
Last week, the Grammy-winning R&B icon was honored at a hometown celebration in McComb, Mississippi. But following the event, online chatter shifted from the commemoration itself to Brandy’s appearance — specifically, that to some online observers, she looked noticeably thinner.
Brandy reacted to the dialogue in an Instagram post on Saturday (July 11), which showed a striking photo carousel of the 47-year-old entertainer.
“Perhaps we’ve been looking for it in all the wrong places. In youth. In perfection. In approval. In bodies that never change and faces that never age,” the vocalist wrote. “But life was never meant to leave us untouched. It shapes us. It humbles us. It refines us. Every season leaves its signature upon us.”
Brandy added that she’s “learned that it takes only a moment to form an opinion about someone’s appearance, and a lifetime to understand what they’ve lived through.”
“So may we become gentler with one another. Not because everyone is fragile, but because everyone is carrying a story we cannot see,” she wrote. “Our words have weight. Our judgments have weight. Our kindness does too."
Brandy’s post concluded with a stance against talking negatively about someone’s figure and remembering that they are “someone’s child,” “someone’s dream,” “someone’s life” and “a soul.”
“And souls have always been more beautiful than surfaces,” she wrote.
In her memoir, Phases, which was published on March 31, Brandy recalled her struggles with bulimia as a teen star and while being in an abusive relationship.
"I believed I was purging more than food. I was expelling the weight of disappointment," she wrote, per People, adding "washing away the residue of other people’s expectations, cleansing myself of perceived failure ... For a few blessed seconds after, I felt lighter. Thinner. Prettier. Worthy. The sensation never lasted, but I chased it like an addict."
