J.K. Rowling Takes Anorexic CelebritiesTo Task
Posted on April 6, 2006
J.K. Rowling has blasted super-thin celebrities, saying that they are terrible role models for girls.
In a posting titled "For Girls Only, Probably…," Rowling tears into the subject of girls and weight after being inspired by a magazine model whose appearance led Rowling to conclude the girl was "either seriously ill or suffering from an eating disorder."People magazine picked up the story from a wire service, which picked it up supposedly from J.K. Rowling's website. But you won't find the story there. Although Ms. Rowling has a new daily Diary Entry, there are no available archives; one can only see today's post. So, did she really lash out against rail-thin celebrities and their tiny dogs? Are there really any archived Diary Entries? Or has He Who Must Not Be Named caused said archives to disappear?"(The model) can talk about eating absolutely loads, being terribly busy and having the world's fastest metabolism until her tongue drops off," Rowling wrote, "but her concave stomach, protruding ribs and stick-like arms tell a different story." Rowling said she found an unwitting ally in the pop star Pink, whose new song "Stupid Girls" satirizes what Rowling calls "celebrities whose greatest achievement is un-chipped nail polish, whose only aspiration seems to be getting photographed in a different outfit nine times a day, whose only function in the world appears to be supporting the trade in overpriced handbags and rat-sized dogs."
The author said she was partly moved to write her critique because of her own daughters, ages 1 and 12, whom she doesn't want to grow up in a thin-obsessed world. "I'd rather they were independent, interesting, idealistic, kind, opinionated, original, funny – a thousand things, before 'thin,'" she wrote. Rowling, who has sold 300 million books worldwide, is currently working on the seventh and final Harry Potter title.