Melanie Lynskey pushes back on America’s Next Top Model winner fat-shaming her

Melanie Lynskey had a few choice words for America’s Next Top Model winner Adrianne Curry after the model body-shamed her.

Lynskey took to Twitter on Wednesday to repost the since-deleted tweet from Curry, who was the season one winner of ANTM in 2003. The TV personality tweeted a photo of the actor from her photoshoot with InStyle in August 2022, which featured the Yellowjackets star posing in a brown, sparkly gown and a multi-coloured cape.

Curry criticised Lynskey’s figure in the tweet and claimed that her shape didn’t fit the role Lynskey was cast in for the drama series The Last of Us.

“Her body says life of luxury…not post apocalyptic warlord. Where is linda hamilton when you need her?” Curry wrote, clearly suggesting that only women of a specific size would be appropriate for the post-apocalyptic drama show.

In response to Curry, Lynskey defended herself and pushed back on the notion that her character, one who acts as a leader for a resistance group in a post-apocalyptic climate, needs to look a specific way.

“Firstly- this is a photo from my cover shoot for InStyle magazine, not a still from HBO’s The Last Of Us,” she wrote. “And I’m playing a person who meticulously planned & executed an overthrow of FEDRA. I am supposed to be SMART, ma’am. I don’t need to be muscly. That’s what henchmen are for.”

As of 8 February, the tweet has more than 18,200 views, with fans praising Lynskey and criticising Curry.

“You look incredible, thriving, healthy and gorgeous,” one wrote, while another added: “You couldn’t possibly look hotter.”

A third claimed: “Adrianne’s mouth says life of not knowing when to be quiet.”

Curry later responded to Lynskey’s tweet, in which she claimed that the actor made edits to her initial post.

“She edited out my tweet where I said she had a perfect hourglass frame that I did not associate with warriors,” she wrote. “Actors taking character criticism as personal attacks is mind blowing.”

When Twitter users accused Curry of body shaming Lynskey, she went on to clarify that her initial comments were about The Last of Us character, not the actor.

“Her body is perfect. Not warlord perfect,” Curry wrote. “I’m talking about a fictional character. I also said she was sorry voiced and short. The fictional character.”

In a third tweet, she continued to claim that Lynskey’s character wasn’t believable for a post-apocalyptic world because she had a “small stature and curvy frame”. Lynskey has not yet responded to Curry’s follow-up tweets.

This wasn’t the first time that the Don't Look Up star has spoken out about body shaming. During an interview with The Hollywood Reporter in August 2022, she revealed how pressured she felt to lose weight while working on the film Coyote Ugly. She recalled the ​​“regimen” that she and her co-stars had to “go on” while filming.

“It was ridiculous. I was already starving myself and as thin as I could possibly be for this body, and I was still a [size] four,” she said. “That was already people putting a lot of Spanx on me in wardrobe fittings and being very disappointed when they saw me, the costume designer being like: ‘Nobody told me there would be girls like you.”

Lynskey also noted that she was subject to body shaming by makeup artists and shared the “really intense feedback” that she’d receive about her looks.

“People doing my makeup and being like: ‘I’m just going to help you out by giving you a bit more of a jawline and stuff,’” she explained. “Just the feedback was constantly like: ‘You’re not beautiful. You’re not beautiful.”

The Independent has contacted a representative for Curry and Lynskey for comment.