Taylor Swift Amends Controversial Music Video After Facing Backlash

Taylor Swift had a rather "swift" response to the backlash she faced after releasing the music video for her newest single, "Anti-hero," which she wrote and directed herself.

The Grammy-winning singer shared that the video visualizes her "nightmare scenarios and intrusive thoughts," which apparently include insecurities about her weight and body image. In the music video, Swift steps on a scale displaying the word "fat" instead of an actual number, while a Swift clone peers over her shoulder in disagreement. It didn't take too long until it drew criticism, with many fans accusing the singer of being fatphobic and insensitive. A fan tweeted that Swift was contributing to the "stigmatization of the word fat," while another said that the scene was a "s***ty way to describe her body image struggles."

It's worth noting that this isn't the first time Swift has opened up about her issues regarding her body image. "It's not good for me to see pictures of myself every day," she confessed in her "Miss Americana" Netflix documentary, adding that comments saying "my tummy was too big" or "looked pregnant" would "trigger me to just starve a little bit [and] just stop eating." She also explained in another Instagram video that the video highlights" aspects of the things we dislike and like about ourselves that we have to come to terms with."

Despite this, the "All Too Well" singer still sparked controversy, causing her to make edits to the music video itself.

Taylor Swift and her team have not given a statement regarding the backlash just yet, but they responded by cutting the "fat" scale scene from the "Anti-hero" music video — at least on Apple Music. Fans will likely see changes on other platforms soon.

But even after the change, online arguments remained, with fans saying the edits were unnecessary and shouldn't have been done from the get-go. "Uh what? I didn't think of this as fatphobic when I first saw this, people are so offended by everything nowadays," one fan said, with another fan sounded off, "im lost, how is it fatphobic? isn't she just talking about society labeling every girl fat?" Also, another fan worried that Swift might stop opening up about her personal struggles publicly. "she will probably never speak up about her insecurities again since everyone got mad at her," they wrote. "the video wasnt fatphobic whatsoever."

Swifties weren't the only ones defending the singer. "The View" hosts also made their feelings heard. "They missed the point," Sunny Hostin said (via Entertainment Weekly). "She was describing a personal experience, and quite frankly, it's a personal experience a lot of women experience... You get on the scale and you're a perfectly normal weight and all you see is fat." Meanwhile, Whoopi Goldberg pleaded for everyone to "leave her a** alone," adding that she understands what Swift was trying to convey. "You can never be just what you are. Everybody wants you to be something more, be less this, more that, and it's what people do to each other on social media."