Chloë Grace Moretz Reveals She Struggled with Body Shaming after ‘Horrific’ Viral Meme
After being subjected to viral social media memes, Chloë Grace Moretz revealed her challenges with body dysmorphia and anxiety.
After intensive online scrutiny made her “super self-conscious” about her body, Moretz revealed in a recent interview with Hunger magazine that she sought therapy.
“I had to work through that,” Moretz explained. “For a long time, I was able to be the Chloë that people see and the Chloë that I am in private. Then those two worlds collided, and I felt really raw and vulnerable and open.”
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“And then came the onslaught of horrific memes that started getting sent to me about my body.”
Chloe Grace Moretz said that a male co-star told her she is “too big.”
“The Peripheral” actress recalls that one meme caused her “really affected”
“I’ve actually never really talked about this, but there was one meme that really affected me, of me walking into a hotel with a pizza box in my hand,” she told the outlet.
“And this photo got manipulated into a character from ‘Family Guy’ with the long legs and the short torso, and it was one of the most widespread memes at the time.”
The Atlanta woman was also stung when her agony was downplayed by people around her, in addition to being wounded after being body-shamed.
“Everyone was making fun of my body, and I brought it up with someone. And they were like, ‘Oh, shut the f— up, it’s funny.’ And I just remember sitting there and thinking, ‘My body is being used as a joke and it’s something that I can’t change about who I am, and it is being posted all over Instagram,’” she said.
The 25-year-old actress told Hunger magazine that after receiving intense online scrutiny about her body, she sought therapy to help deal with the resulting insecurity.
“It was something so benign as walking into a hotel with leftovers,” the actress said. “And, to this day, when I see that meme, it’s something very hard for me to overcome.”
The meme originated in 2016 when the actress was photographed leaving a hotel with two pizza boxes, wearing all black.
Some internet users decided to play around with Moretz’s image by photoshopping it to make her legs look longer and her torso shorter. They then placed the edited photo next to a screenshot of the “Family Guy” character “Legs Go All The Way Up” Griffin from a 2011 episode. This character is known for having exaggeratedly long legs and a short torso.
Moretz stated that she was “kind of sad” after the meme went viral, and now doesn’t take pleasure in having her photo taken at red carpet events.
“It took a layer of something that I used to enjoy, which was getting dressed up and going to a carpet and taking a photo, and made me super self-conscious,” she explained.
The meme began in 2016 when the actress was photographed leaving a hotel with two pizza boxes, wearing all black.
“And I think that body dysmorphia, which we all deal with in this world, is extrapolated by the issues of social media. It’s a headf—.”
The “Carrie” star said that her high levels of anxiety when being photographed drove her to withdraw from the limelight.
“I basically became a recluse,” Moretz said.
“It was great because I got away from the photographers, and I was able to be myself and to have so many experiences that people didn’t photograph. But, at the same time, it made me severely anxious when I was photographed. My heart rate would rise, and I would hyperventilate.”
When asked why the beginning of COVID-19 was such a relief, Moretz said that she could cover her face when she went out in public since the epidemic began.
“It definitely aided that experience for me. I just put a hat on, put a mask on and then put my hood up and would be able to get away with a lot more, like go to a concert or bite my lip or have undocumented pimples,” she said.
She also mentioned that lockdown gave her a breather from her packed schedule, and it was a “time of introspection.”
“To say that these past two years have been transformative is an understatement, to say the least. I’m a very different girl than I was. I feel like a woman now,” Moretz concluded.
Alexander is passionate about everything related to gaming, comics, television, and film. You can usually find him watching some kind of DC show and can also find his writing on Multiversal News, something he’s helping to build.
