Queen Latifah Reveals ‘Living Single’ Cast Was Told To Lose Weight: That Did Bother Me

Queen Latifah Reveals ‘Living Single’ Cast Was Told To Lose Weight: Don’t Tell Me What To Do Because I’m Going To Do The Opposite

Nobody can tell a queen what to do, especially with her body!

Queen Latifah is getting real about her weight. In a new interview with Essence, the 51-years-old triple threat is opening up about self love and her health journey.

Queen Latifah

Although Queen Latifah has never directly talked about her weight, she says it has always been played a role in how she saw herself. While discussing her new campaign, ‘It’s Bigger Than Me‘ with Novo Nordisk, pharmaceutical company, Queen Latifah explains,

“The feeling of self-hate is really, really scary. I would get those flashes of this feeling through my teenage years and I was like, this is a dark place.”

She continued,

“And around 18, I just remember looking in the mirror and I said to myself, I was like, ‘Dana, you have a choice. You are either going to choose to love yourself, or you’re going to choose to hate yourself. What you going to do?’ And I chose to love myself.”

But self-love wasn’t always easy to maintain due to the judgement of others. Recalling an experience on ‘Living Single‘ she said,

“I remember when I was doing Living Single, the word came down that we needed to lose weight and it was like, what? Now mind you, we have the number one show among Black and Latino, Latinx audiences, at the time. And we have a hit show and you’re telling us we need to lose weight.”

Living Single, which was led by an all black cast, aired in Aug. 1993 and ran for six seasons on Fox network. As for changing their appearance Latifah said,

“We look like real people. We look like real women. We all look different. And those are the kind of things that come to you that can chip away at your self-esteem. That’s the kind of insensitivity that we’re fighting against right now. That’s the kind of shame planting that can destroy self-esteem.”

She added,

“That did bother me. But of course, it didn’t make a difference. I didn’t change anything as a result of it. If anything, I’m just the rebel. Don’t tell me what to do, because I’m going to do the opposite. But it did make me cognizant.”

As to where she is now with loving herself, Queen Latifah said,

“But in general, I’m happy with me. I’ve accepted me for me. I’ve accepted that I’m not a size two, I’m not a size eight. I ain’t been a size eight probably since I was eight. I’m cool with that.”

What do you do for self-love? Tell us in the comments. 

VIA