Loni Love continues to get herself into hot water over a recent comment she made in an interview with Hello Beautiful.
That comment Loni Love made, “There are no real plus size icons for me” has resulted in taking the focus off her recent holiday collection with Ashley Stewart and putting more focus on plus size women voicing their opinions on Love’s comments, including naming many plus size icons, white and black.
And it appears Love’s way of listening to those opinions is to block those individuals, most recently blocking plus size model and Project Runway model winner Liris Crosse, after having a heated discussion in a series of tweets.
Yes, you read right. Liris Crosse.
As many in the fashion industry know, plus and mainstream, Crosse is a veteran in the modeling game. She has had a successful career in modeling for 20+ years, as well as acting, hosting and public speaking. She is now an author and has a successful Boot Camp program she developed for aspiring models. She was dubbed the Naomi Campbell of Plus by the media and was the first plus size model to win the model competition on Project Runway.
So when Jami Griggs of the blog Style Over Size responded to Love on Twitter, mentioning Crosse and Ashley Graham are plus size icons, it ignited a heated conversation, which resulted in Love blocking both Griggs and Crosse. See the exchange below (Screenshots courtesy of Liris Crosse/Twitter):
Author Danielle James wrote in that infamous article for Hello Beautiful:
“Loni Love is a pioneer in the industry for plus size women from being a hilarious comedian to having a successful talk show as well as an acting career and an author. One thing about Love is that she has always empowered plus size women, particularly Black plus size women, while on and off the set.”
We don’t dispute Love’s career accolades or her contribution in empowering women with those boss moves. However, after that interview, her recent interactions with plus size women, most of whom are Black, are not empowering other plus size women. What it’s doing is showing a side of Love that is not plus positive at all.
These women are simply trying to point out that there are plus size icons out there, including recent ones in the last five years. Past or present, that is a fact… the plus size industry is full of plus size icons in many areas, including fashion.
As Crosse pointed out, Love could have used her platform to actually empower plus size women but in turn, she is showing herself as a plus size woman talking negatively about the plus size industry.
To echo Crosse, we haven’t been afforded the mainstream press opportunities to become the type of plus size icon that Love is apparently seeking.
Your words are not helping to elevate us, Loni Love. And that’s not the definition of empowering plus size women.
Instead of blocking our voices, we hope you will consider humbling yourself and actually listening to what we’re saying. You might actually find that plus size icon you seek in the process and learn more about the plus size industry.
We reached out to Loni Love for comment and no response has been received as of the publishing of this article.
What do you think of Loni Love and her “no plus size icons” comment? Follow us on social media and sound off: @plusmodelmag: Facebook | Instagram | Twitter