Sharon Osbourne on Adele's weight loss: 'Really big women' are never 'really happy in their body'

Yep, it's been over a week and we're still talking about Adele's viral birthday snap as though it's the biggest event of the century. Never mind the pandemic, let's keep perpetuating outdated and biased beliefs on what a woman's ideal body size should be. This time, it's the 67-year-old TV personality Sharon Osbourne who thought the world simply had to know what she thought about the 15-time Grammy Award-winning singer's dramatic change in appearance. On Tuesday—long after the conversation should've been laid to rest once and for all—Osbourne praised Adele's transformation while at the same time making it evident how little she knows about body positivity. 

Appearing on her CBS virtual chat show The Talk, Osbourne said the British singer looks "absolutely fantastic," and that she "totally understands" the 32-year-old's decision to undergo this physical transformation. "It was her time to lose weight, that's all, in her journey, in her life. She must have felt, you know what, I'm going to try and lose some weight, for whatever reason -- health, I am sure. She looks absolutely fantastic. I'm happy for her and everybody should be happy for her, because it was her choice. She didn't do it for anybody else but herself. And so, everybody should be happy for her," she said, according to CNN.

Osbourne then went on to recall her own experiences with weight loss, speaking of her frame of mind after she shed a reported 125 pounds following a gastric band surgery in 1999. Her attempt to share an anecdote, however, did more harm than good as it simply reinforced existing stereotypes about body image. "When really big women say they're really happy in their body, I don't believe them," she said, while plus-size women like myself wondered who made her our official spokesperson.

"Because I was really, really big and I wasn't happy. Sure, on the surface, 'Ha, ha,' but at night, in bed alone, I was very unhappy," Osbourne added. She also claimed she was more comfortable when she was with "bigger women" before her losing weight because she "felt like we had something in common. We never spoke about it, but there was this underlying connection that we had."

The celeb's comments did not go down well with netizens who were quick to call out her tone-deaf contribution to the body image debate. If somebody makes a personal choice to alter their appearance in some way to realize their own perception of beauty for themselves, that is nothing but laudable. But stereotyping plus-size women as perpetually unhappy in their bodies is wrong and harmful, tweeted @left_populist. Twitter user @maciejane13 wrote: Mrs. Osbourne that is literally solely because women like you make statements like this and make them feel like they shouldn’t be. Just because YOU weren't happy in your bigger body doesn't mean other women can’t be. ADELE HAS ALWAYS LOOKED ABSOLUTELY FANTASTIC.