Everyone has dealt with insecurities about their body at some point. Period. In the past few years, we’ve really begun to acknowledge that and well-known personalities are even holding these sort of conversations in the public eye.
Willow Smith is the latest to discuss her own bodily insecurities on Red Table Talk, a Facebook Watch series hosted by the 17-year-old star, her mother Jada Pinkett-Smith, and her grandmother Adrienne Banfield-Jones. “I have struggled with curvier girls [who] have always gotten more attention from the boys that I’ve liked,” Willow said. “And [who] have ended up dating the boys I’ve liked.”
She opened up further about comparing her own shape to the shapes of other women around her: “You start to wonder, ‘Dang, am I just not desirable? Like, is my body just like not what society likes?’ So it does just get really hard for a lot of girls.”
There comes a point near adulthood in which we realize that every single person has worried about themselves, and perhaps their bodies, in the same way that we worry about our own. I can definitely say that if I heard a celebrity around my age (more slender than I am) talking about her own struggles when I was younger, that would’ve broadened my perspective quite a bit.
Willow later went on to defend her choice to grow out her underarm hair, after her mother and grandmother expressed their distaste. “I’m going to be like my ancestors and just do what I need to do,” she explained.
It’s awesome that Willow is willing to speak so candidly about the way she views her own body. She (along with the other women in her family) is acting as a great role model for viewers and fans.