Model and eating disorder recovery advocate Charli Howard and actor Jameela Jamil publicly criticized Ariana Grande’s management, family, and label this week over the singer’s newly released “Petal” music video, saying the imagery risks harming young viewers.
Grande, 33, released “Petal,” the title track and second single from her eighth studio album, on July 31. Shot in VistaVision, a 1950s cinematic format, the video casts Grande as an aspiring performer named Pepper who is repeatedly dismissed by a panel of older studio executives before she turns a garden chainsaw on them.
Many people on social media expressed concern forGrande’ss health due to the singer’s appearance in the music video.
Howard, who has written extensively about her recovery from an eating disorder, addressed the video in an Instagram post. She said that thoughts about weight loss have persisted long after treatment, particularly as she has gained weight over the past 18 months.
“Will being thinner make me happier? Will it bring me relief, a partner, love, contentment? Deep down, and after years of therapy & recovery, I know this isn’t true. But other women and girls do not,” Howard wrote. “I think it’s vital we discuss imagery/videos/content like these and the damage they can, and will, have on women and girls. WHAT YOU SEE HERE IS NOT NORMAL.”
Howard said that in recent weeks she had seen worried comments from fans alongside posts insisting the singer looks healthy or has lost what one commenter called puppy fat. Some, she said, made jokes about it. She said she believed the singer required hospitalization and immediate intervention.
She then turned to the people around the singer.
“I think it is absolutely appalling, from both a moral and capitalistic standpoint, to have released these videos and an album when this person needs psychiatric help and hospitalisation,” Howard wrote. “The teams involved should be absolutely ashamed. What’s disappointing is that it takes teams, often hundreds, of people to approve videos like these and get them over the line. Each and every one of you, including her family and management, are enabling this person and encouraging her illness when she needs help.”
Howard closed by calling for the video to be pulled and for the singer to be given time away from performing. “We do not need a repeat of the early 2000s,” she wrote.
Jamil made a similar argument in an Instagram comment that has since been deleted.
“This poor woman is possibly dying right in front of us,” Jamil wrote. “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.”
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