CMAT confronts toxic abuse of singers who aren’t ‘thin’

CMAT has powerfully taken aim at online trolls by showing how people direct disproportionate levels of abuse at artists who are not “thin” compared with other performers, such as Zara Larsson and Olivia Dean.

This is in response to attacks the singer received online following her performance last week at BBC’s Radio 1 Big Weekend.

As a result of this unwarranted torrent of abuse, CMAT – whose real name is Ciara Mary-Alice Thompson – took to Instagram as she felt:

compelled to wade in and speak for myself.

Her disgust isn’t hers alone – with fans having also shared their disgust and dismay at the way in which women’s bodies are objectified.

Moreover, one fan’s Substack outlined how:

If a woman exists outside conventional beauty standards, she becomes subject to outright cruelty. If her appearance changes, she is accused of betrayal.

If she appears too strong, too thin, too sexual, too visible, too unapologetic, the internet collectively decides her body has become public discourse.

Adding that Larson and Dean:

were granted a level of grace and basic humanity that was completely denied to CMAT.

Wrote about the bizarre way female artists are still treated as public property online.

CMAT literally wrote Take a Sexy Picture of Me about this exact abuse & then returned to Big Weekend and I’m seeing very similar patterns on social media…https://t.co/D2RCdXQS3Q pic.twitter.com/EpfUG6sy0c

— Em (@emsocialcalpol) May 28, 2026

CMAT – too much of a gorgeous genius for this shit

In the music industry, this particular issue becomes even more heightened than it is across wider society, as emphasised by this push back against a continuation of this toxic hierarchy of value dependent on Western values of ‘beauty’.

Nevertheless, these attacks – and CMAT’s refusal to take this abuse quietly – will resonate with many across the country who feel this same pressure to conform.

CMAT wrote on Instagram:

It is literally so boring for me, a gorgeous genius, to keep having to yap on about how horribly I am treated because of my body.

I would love to stop but I cannot because it keeps happening, at an accelerating and worsening pace as I become more famous.

Adding that her being able to enjoy her growing success is:

increasingly becoming tarnished by the fact that I would be allowed to enjoy it so much more if I was thin.

Like many other ‘controversial’ issues, to be silent in the face of it is to consent to it.

CMAT makes it inspiringly clear that she will never allow anyone to make her feel “lesser” than other artists and musicians simply because she breaks the mould that, frankly, pervy men have set for us. And, she made it clear that her weight is not a ‘statement’:

I am not being defiant. I am not choosing to look like this or weigh this much as some kind of punk rock act of liberty. I simply have a body, one that I would of course like to change in order to fit in and avoid all of this abuse, but I have had extreme difficulty in doing so. I don’t get a say in whether or not I want to be brave, I simply have to sit here and take it.

Dehumanisation

Her fan, Front Row Feels, also pointed out how little attention people apparently pay to the actual substance of her music, considering that Take a Sexy Picture of Me directly addresses this very same toxic abuse.

In a Substack, she aptly pointed out how we insist on treating women in music as public property, saying:

If music culture genuinely values vulnerability, honesty and emotional truth from women, then audiences need to fundamentally rethink the way we engage with the women creating it. Female artists are not morality tests, branding exercises or public property disguised as discourse. They are human beings that are allowed to change, age, fluctuate, strengthen, soften and simply exist without public consultation.

The least we can do is listen to what they are actually saying instead of immediately evaluating the body saying it.

 

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Looks fade – our value as human beings does not

As a woman who once weighed five stone more, but who has since become “thin” because of the cost-of-living crisis affecting my single-parent family, I find this issue particularly poignant. Since losing weight, people have generally seemed more receptive to what I have to say and more willing to give me space to be heard.

But that creates another doubt entirely: whether people value your contributions for their substance, or simply because they find you more aesthetically acceptable.

And when people dislike what I say, they immediately weaponise my appearance – whether by mocking my supposedly receding hairline or accusing me of having “too many teeth”. People constantly use women’s appearances as a way to manufacture a sense of dominance and control.

At the same time, being “thin” has also brought a notable increase in sexualised abuse and harassment, to the point that I now avoid dating or going out.

Therefore, the reality is that women cannot win – regardless of what we do, people still treat us as public property and subject us to abuse in one form or another.

We will face abuse in some form or other, no matter what we do. So, as CMAT is modelling herself, the most important thing is to learn to accept ourselves regardless of how our bodies change.

Featured image via Getty/Emma McIntyre