Jameela Jamil: ‘Our bodies are our ride-or-die’

Jameela Jamil talks to Annie Vischer about challenging accepted beauty standards and redefining her relationship with her body

a self-proclaimed ‘feminist-in-progress’, Jameela Jamil is undoubtedly one of social media’s strongest voices. Having ‘made it’ in America, thanks to her breakout role as Tahani Al-jamil in Netflix mainstay The Good Place, Jameela could easily have succumbed to a Pr-friendly life of red carpets and SNL interviews, but her desire to challenge patriarchal beauty standards – thankfully – won out.

Since launching the I Weigh (@i_weigh) community back in 2018, she has built a 1.3 million-strong following of mainly women who tune in to her motivating posts about self-worth and inclusivity. ‘I’m not some great leader or intellectual, but what I’m really good at is interrupting a narrative. I think I’ve been extremely effective in interrupting diet and detox culture. Can I single-handedly get rid of it? Sadly, no. But I can make you think twice about it.’

Even her brand work comes with a mission, partnering with The Body Shop to launch Self Love Uprising, a movement that aims to build self-esteem on a global scale by encouraging social media users to share their stories of self-empowerment. ‘As a woman, being proud of yourself and believing you are “enough” as you are is an act of social and political resistance,’ she says.

Nevertheless, she’s mindful of the pressure many feel to achieve self-love. ‘I’m at neutrality still, I can’t get to love.’ Self Love Uprising focuses on the journey rather than the end goal. ‘Self-love is the final destination, not something you should feel like you’re failing at,’ she adds. ‘We don’t need one more thing to fail at. It’s all about the incremental process.’

Jameela has always been vocal about her own struggles with body image. ‘I spent 20 years being angry at my body, asking, “Why are you failing me? Why won’t you let my hip bones jut out? Why won’t you be obedient?” I was so ungrateful and rude. I feel as though I mistreated my best friend.’ Is there anything that could have flipped the switch for Jameela at the time? ‘God, I wish I’d understood photo editing. That would have changed the whole game for me. I wish I’d known that my value as a human being could not be measured with a tape or a set of scales. There’s so much I didn’t learn because I was distracted by self-hate.’

For Jameela, self-respect is key when it comes to redefining our relationship with our bodies. ‘Our bodies are our best friends. Our bodies are our ride-or-die. They will be with you until 4am in the club. They’re going to have sex with who you want to have sex with, they’re going to eat what you want to eat, they’re going to fix you when you fall over. When you start to look at your body as your best friend you want to protect it more and stop talking shit to it. You want to stop mistreating it, because it does more for you than anyone else in your life.’

To read more about Self Love Uprising, visit thebodyshop.com/ en-gb/about-us/activism/self-love

‘I SPENT 20 YEARS BEING ANGRY AT MY BODY’