Taylor Swift seems to have quietly edited her “Anti-Hero” music video to remove the word “fat” after she received backlash from viewers.
Following the recent release of her newest record-breaking album Midnights, on which “Anti-Hero” features, some labelled the song’s corresponding music video “fatphobic” because of a scene that sees the 32-year-old Grammy-winning artist step on a scale that reads “Fat”.
On Wednesday (26 October), fans on Twitter noticed that the Apple Music version of the video no longer includes the close-up view of the scale, which originally showed the word “fat”.
Instead, it now only shows a far-away shot of Swift as she steps on the scale. Although the singer has yet to publicly address the edits, at the time of writing, the YouTube version remains in its original form.
The Independent has reached out to Swift’s representatives for comment.
Fans have responded to the new changes with one writing that they were “bummed it was edited out”.
“As a fan who has struggled with body issues and eating disorders for most of my young life, I felt less alone by Taylor’s inclusion of this in the video,” they added.
Another agreed, commenting: “That is so ridiculous. She was vulnerable with us about her feelings with regard to her body; she wasn’t spreading fatphobia at all.”
“Let people express their experiences without making it about yourselves,” a third argued.
The new development comes a day after The View hosts Sunny Hostin and Whoopi Goldberg came to Swift’s defence, saying that the critics have “missed the point”.
“For someone who’s an artist, she gets to have agency over her artistry. She was describing a personal experience, and quite frankly, it’s a personal experience a lot of women experience,” Hostin said.
Swift has previously described “Anti-Hero” as a song about her “insecurities”.
You can read The Independent’s five-star review of the album here.
