When Black plus-size model Paloma Elsesser won the British Fashion Council’s Model of the Year award in December 2023, she expected some backlash. So much so that she had initially hoped she wouldn’t win.
“I was on my hands and knees … praying,” she wrote in an essay for New York magazine.
Elsesser, who was born to an African-American mother and a Chilean-Swiss father, was part of the award’s most diverse pool of models to date. Nominated alongside Anok Yai, Liu Wen, Alton Mason, Mona Tougaard, and Kai-Isaiah Jamal, the six 2023 nominees represented Black American, African Asian, mixed-heritage, and queer and trans identities. But immediately following her win in December, Elsesser’s worst fears were confirmed by an onslaught of hateful trolls — including Kanye “Ye” West, who posted a TikTok in which he included Elsesser in his condemnation of “part of a vast conspiracy to ‘push obesity to us.’”
Notably, this is not the first time Kanye has used social media to target a Black, plus-sized woman. As previously reported by theGrio, in 2022, he infamously attacked Gabriella Karefa-Johnson, Vogue’s former global fashion editor-at-large, after she dared criticize his use of the slogan “White Lives Matter” in his Yeezy presentation during Paris Fashion Week. As with Elsesser, he used his platform to denigrate Karefa-Johnson’s appearance and rally his followers to do the same.
As Elsesser explained, the abuse was devastating to her mental health. “Every doubt I had ever felt bubbled and spat like oil on a pan; my self-esteem was eviscerated. It felt as though my intrusive thoughts had become the subject of discourse for every rando on the internet (zero posts, zero followers, with handles like “fashionluvr2002”),” she wrote.
Two months later, Elsesser is opening up about the experience and declaring why she refuses to allow any of it — including holding the line when it comes to her beliefs on the…
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