Warning: This article contains discussion of eating disorders which some readers may find distressing.
Jameela Jamil has shared a further message about Ariana Grande after news broke that the singer plans to step back from the spotlight once her Eternal Sunshine Tour ends.
Representatives for Grande said the singer would be “taking a well deserved break from public-facing work and appearances, which has led to endless, ongoing public scrutiny,” according to PEOPLE. The tour is scheduled to conclude on September 1 with a 10-night residency at London’s O2 Arena. Grande also withdrew from the upcoming West End revival of Stephen Sondheim’s “Sunday in the Park with George,” where she had been set to star alongside her “Wicked” costar Jonathan Bailey.
Not long after that announcement, Jamil sparked debate online with comments she posted to Instagram Stories, which were later deleted.
“This poor woman is possibly dying right in front of us,” Jamil wrote on now deleted Instagram stories. “This outfit is designed to accentuate the thinness for discourse. Her team are thoroughly irresponsible for not guiding her away from this deeply damaging image for her young fans to see so glamorized.”
She also said that “commenting on her body could run the risk of harming her mental health, whereas not commenting could run the risk of normalising that image to hundreds of millions.”
In her deleted Instagram Stories, Jamil claimed that recent images of Ariana were “flooding pro-anorexia websites” and questioned when it would be appropriate to intervene. She also posted: “This is why we have to make sure we stop disordered eating as soon as we can… When will it be time to intervene as a public and stop normalising, glamorising, and on some occasions championing this? When we lose a young woman in the public eye?”
Jamil later expanded on her remarks by referencing her own experience with anorexia.
“I don’t know Ariana and pray she recovers,” she said. “I don’t think she’s in the comments sections of tiny posts, but young girls watching are, and we need to signal to THEM that this is not the time to pretend this is ok.”
Grande has not spoken publicly about her health. Her comments came after Grande’s “Petal” music video, released on July 31, sparked conversations among fans who noticed her changed appearance.
Less than a day after removing the original posts, Jamil shared a reel of Grande addressing her decision to take a break during her Monday night concert stop in Chicago.
“The announcement that was made yesterday was not a reactive or impulsive thing. It is something that I had decided to plan,” Grande said, adding that she made the plan “quietly, a long time ago,” and said it was not true that “negativity” was “ruining things for me.” She emphasized to fans: “No matter what noises exist out there, nothing will be able to distort my reality or be more real to me as this love that we share.”
She also spoke about setting boundaries and why time away is important for her. “Boundaries, they need to be set,” Grande told the crowd at the Chicago United Center show.
In a message over the reel, Jamil voiced support for that choice.
“She wants rest and boundaries and I think that’s great. It’s something more people need to do for themselves,” she wrote.
After the earlier backlash, Jamil also posted on her main feed, sharing a TikTok comment from someone who said they care for dementia patients who are “still concerned about their weight”.
“They don’t know who their family is anymore but they do remember dieting,” the comment read.
Jamil added her own text over the post.
“This is why we have to make sure we stop disordered eating as soon as we can,” she wrote, before adding: “Everything I say is to help the girls watching us.”
In the caption, she argued that young people without access to specialist help are especially vulnerable to the pressures created by celebrity culture.
“Celebrities have access to the best support and care on the planet. Most of the teenagers and impressionable young people watching us, don’t. They must always be our priority as a public because anorexia has the highest death rate of any mental illness and only 30 percent of people with it ever recover,” she wrote in the caption.
“Celebrity culture is triggering people surviving Eating Disorders worse than ever at the moment. At least during the last heroin chic round we didn’t have social media exposing people 24 hours a day whether or not they are even looking for pro Ana content,” she continued.
She went on to say that clinicians regularly contact her with concerns about what they are seeing.
Further along in the caption, the 40-year-old said every hour, a nurse or eating disorder clinician reaches out, to tell her they’re “more inundated than ever before with inpatients, younger and younger kids starving themselves to emulate the aesthetic of their favourite entertainers.”
Jamil finished by encouraging anyone who is struggling to seek support. She referenced singer Karen Carpenter while arguing that society should challenge harmful beauty standards, writing: “We do not pretend then that it is not appropriate to comment on how thin they are. We don’t have to pretend we are blind because it’s a pop star. Everyone is killing her by normalizing this. Silence is complicity when it gets this far.”
Her comments drew mixed responses from fans. Some praised Jamil for speaking out, while others criticized her for commenting on Grande’s appearance, noting that Grande has previously stated that comments about her body affect her deeply. One fan wrote: “How many times has Ariana said that comments about her body affect her deeply?? Just accept her art and LET HER BE.”
In response to the backlash, Jamil defended herself, saying her comments were intended to discuss the impact of beauty ideals on young people rather than criticize Grande personally.
Speaking on Monday night, Grande told fans that the public narrative around her life does not reflect how she actually feels.
“No matter what noises exist out there, nothing will be able to distort my reality or be more real to me or not as real to me as this love that we share,” she told her fans, calling her Eternal Sunshine Tour “one of the most healing, beautiful, correct and special experiences,” of her entire life. She also said the tour has been “the most healing, beautiful, corrective, magnificent, special experience” of her life.