Despite undergoing several cosmetic procedures herself, Tess Holliday wants her fans to know that they are “perfect the way they are.”
The model and body positivity activist took to TikTok to share the message with her audience, inspired to do so when she learned that people were using her image as a blueprint for their plastic surgeries.
After it came to Holliday’s attention that a new Brazilian Butt Lift trend involved using photos of herself and her fellow body positivity model Ashely Graham as blueprints, she knew she had to speak up.
“Listen, I’m pro-plastic surgery. I’m pro-do-what-you-want with your body. I got Dolly (Parton) tattooed on me for a reason,” the 37-year-old shared with her hundreds of thousands of followers.
“I’m just here to remind you that these are trends. Don’t do anything to your body to fit in with a trend. Do not do it.”
The blogger and mother of two has been extremely open about her own self-image journey in the past, including using this particular TikTok to acknowledge procedures she’s done herself, such as lip fillers and botox.
Using her social platform to talk about body positivity is nothing new to Holliday, who started online last spring about her battle with anorexia and has been posting regularly about her recovery ever since.
“I have anorexia and am recovering. I’m not ashamed to say it out loud anymore,” Holliday tweeted last May. “I am the result of a culture that celebrates thinness and equates it with value, but I can now write my own story. I am finally able to take care of a body that I have punished all my life and I am finally free.”
While the influencer has faced uncertainty in the past, she doesn’t want the same for her followers, especially in pursuing “trend” procedures like BBLs, which have a death rate much higher than any other cosmetic surgery. according to The American Society of Plastic Surgeons.
“All my life I’ve been told that how I am now is good enough, and I’ve made money from how I’m doing,” Holliday told her online fans.
‘So don’t change it. If you want, fine. But don’t feel you have to. You are perfect the way you are.”