Rumer Wills took a stand against body shaming after fans criticized her appearance in her latest Instagram post.
The actress, who is the daughter of Demi Moore and Bruce Willis, had shared a playful photo of her posing in bright clothing on Tuesday, which drew sharp commentary from critics who claimed Willis looked too skinny and needed to eat something.
In a Wednesday Instagram story, Rumer shared an alternative photo from the shoot, saying it reflects “what I actually look like” and called out the harmful comments.
“After the barrage of some really inappropriate comments left on my pic I posted yesterday I was left really bummed cause I was really enjoying the silly pics I took,” said Rumer, 32. “It was a weird angle that even made me feel like I looked smaller than I do in real life.”
“Even though you may think it’s your job or even your right to leave your unfiltered thoughts or judgements about my body for me and others to read… it’s not,” the Masked Singer alum continued, adding she will not tolerate such negativity.
“If I was really struggling with any kind of food issues (which I’m gratefully not) coming for me in my comments and telling me how I’m too skinny or I need to eat is absolutely not helpful and extremely body shaming,” said Rumer, who laid out the appropriate way for concerned fans to reach out and offer help.
“If you were actually concerned for my health and welfare or anyone you think may be actually struggling send them a dm and have a private conversation and really ask how they are doing and if they would like support,” she continued, closing her statement with, “Body shaming of any kind is something I will not stand for.”
After finding a size 30A bra she wore while modeling for the lingerie brand’s 2016 fashion show, she tried it on for a TikTok video. She also shared that she is now a size 34B, which she said is “healthy for me.”
Once Malcolm puts her past runway bra on, she shows how ill-fitted it is now and discusses how she was rejected from a 2017 show by Victoria’s Secret former Chief Marketing Officer Edward Razek.
“He said my body did not look good enough,” she captioned the clip. Malcolm also mentioned that at that point she wore a size 30B bra.
Later in the now-viral video that’s been viewed more than 2.5 million times, the model and mental health advocate included a photo of herself from the past show saying “the sadness behind my eyes from the 2016 show breaks my heart.”
Malcolm concluded the video calling Victoria’s Secret out for “performative allyship” and how she views the brand’s recent efforts for inclusive change as “too little, too late.”
The post has been liked more than 307,000 times, with many TikTok users sharing their thoughts. “I don’t get why models ‘have’ to be like this or like that,” said thetinglez.
“Models are supposed to show stuff for the human and every human is different,” she continued.
In response to Malcolm’s displeasing experience with Victoria’s Secret, a brand spokesperson told GMA, “There is a new leadership team at Victoria’s Secret who is fully committed to the continued transformation of the brand with a focus on creating an inclusive environment for our associates, customers and partners to celebrate, uplift and champion all women,” in a statement.
This statement also follows the company’s major brand revamp announced in June.
The retailer’s new direction includes a new diverse VS Collective with ambassadors such as actress and entrepreneur Priyanka Chopra Jonas, transgender Brazilian model Valentina Sampaio, LGBTQIA+ activist and professional soccer player Megan Rapinoe, and several others.
Through this new platform, the brand plans to create new associate programs, evolutionary product collections, compelling and inspiring content, and rally support for causes vital to women.
In addition to a more diverse collective of ambassadors, Victoria’s Secret told Good Morning America the company’s storefronts will take a new direction and mannequins will be displayed with diverse body types.
After 23 years, the lingerie retailer recently canceled its annual fashion show and has moved forward in a new direction without its infamous “Angels.”
(PARIS) — After a four-day search, a woman was arrested Wednesday as part of the investigation into a large crash at the Tour de France earlier last week, according to local prosecutors.
The 30-year-old suspect turned herself into police and expressed feelings “of shame, of fear, in the face of the consequences of her act,” public prosecutor Camille Miansoni said Thursday. She is “distressed by the media coverage of what she calls ‘her blunder,'” added Miansoni.
Prosecutors said police would take measures “proportionate to the seriousness of the facts and to the personality of the author.”
The woman is accused of causing a large crash by holding a sign in front of cyclists in the opening stage of the competition on Saturday. She had allegedly left the scene before authorities arrived. Her cardboard sign read “allez opi-omi,” meaning “go grandma-grandpa” in German.
After the crash, three riders withdrew from the race due to their injuries, according to the Tour’s organizers, including German cyclist Jasha Sütterlin of Team DSM.
“Following the crash, he was taken to hospital for examinations which revealed no broken bones, but a severe contusion to his right wrist that will require further examinations back at home,” Team DSM said in a statement about Sütterlin, who admitted he was “so disappointed.”
Tony Martin, a member of top Tour contender Primoz Roglic’s Jumbo Visma squad, hit the woman on the right side of the road, causing a domino effect for riders inside the peloton.
The first fall was followed by another, which injured four-time Tour de France winner Chris Froome.
Riders briefly halted the race on Tuesday to protest against the danger caused by spectators who were too close to the road.
“Following the crashes during the third stage of the Tour de France, the riders have been discussing how they wish to proceed to show their dissatisfaction with safety measures in place and demand their concerns are taken seriously,” the riders’ union, the Cyclistes Professionnels Associés, said in a statement. “Their frustration about foreseeable and preventable action is enormous.”
The local chief of police Nicolas Duvinage on Thursday called for calm in a press conference, saying the suspect was trying to send a message on TV to her grandparents and that it is “wise not to carry out a media lynching.”
Fearing a backlash, Tour de France organizers decided to drop their suit against the fan in question and withdrew their complaint “for the sake of appeasement … in the face of the excitement on social media,” said Tour director Pierre-Yves Thouault. “We don’t want to look like we are flogging a dead horse. But we remind you of the safety rules.”
(JERUSALEM) — Israel may have a new prime minister but the departure of Benjamin Netanyahu does not appear to be changing the country’s tough stance against Iran.
Naftali Bennett has been in office less than three weeks and has already made clear that nothing has changed on the Jewish State’s right to defend itself.
The new prime minister on Wednesday vowed Israel will “always defend itself against any external threat” — a message widely seen as a warning to Iran.
Bennett also insisted Israel “will not have its hands tied” when it comes to security.
Like his predecessor Netanyahu, Bennett has indicated a revived U.S.-Iran nuclear deal will not stop Israel from acting to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon.
Martha Stewart revealed Wednesday that she is on bed rest after injuring her Achilles tendon.
Taking to Instagram, the 79-year-old lifestyle guru admitted her latest update was “not the prettiest photo nor the happiest back story” and shared a photo of her heavily bandaged ankle.
“Bad timing all around,” said Stewart. “Ruptured my Achilles’ tendon a while ago. Tried to get it to heal on its own to no avail.”
The Meatless author explained that she underwent a three-hour surgery the previous day “to repair the damage” and is now “recuperating at home.”
“I have been ordered to lay still with leg elevated for two weeks. After that another two to four weeks of crutches. Then maybe some more normal activity,” continued Stewart, who then described how she managed to injure herself.
“Most such ruptures occur when dancing or playing sports. Mine was caused by a surprise step into a hole in the dark getting out of the car,” Martha lamented before shouting out her doctors for “attempting to make me whole again.”
Several of Martha’s famous friends were quick to send in their well wishes, including Drew Barrymore, Ellen Pompeo and celebrity chef Geoffrey Zakarian.
“Glad to hear you are on your way to a full recovery,” wrote Pompeo, who referenced her long-running medical drama Grey’s Anatomy in her encouraging note. “Lots of love from your favorite fake doctor.”
Barrymore left Martha a cheeky pick-me-up with her comment, which read, “Your [sic] still so sexy !!! so so so sexy!”
The shoulder injury Harrison Ford suffered while rehearsing a fight scene a week ago for the forthcoming Indiana Jones 5 movie hasn’t wreaked “chaos” on the U.K. set after all, as one report claimed.
Director James Mangoldtweeted this response to a concerned fan: “We’re all good. Shooting! But thanks!”
Filming on this latest installment, already delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic, hit a snag last week when the 78-year-old star reportedly injured his shoulder while rehearsing a fight scene. A Disney spokesperson told ABC News at the time that filming would continue while the appropriate course of treatment is evaluated, but the U.K. tabloid The Sun then reported Wednesday that production on the film had “ground to a halt.” Mangold’s update appears to contradict that claim.
Indiana Jones 5, which was originally slated to hit theaters July 9, was pushed back to July 29, 2022 this past April over COVID-19 concerns.
The as-yet-untitled fifth Indy adventure also stars Mads Mikkelsen, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Shaunette Renée Wilson and Mangold’s Logan baddie, Boyd Holbrook. The film is being produced by Lucasfilm, which is owned by Disney, parent company of ABC News.
(NEW YORK) — As coronavirus concerns decimated the demand for travel and the aviation industry was faced with its biggest crisis in history, two former airline executives were about to do the unthinkable: start an airline.
Major U.S. airline CEOs were just trying to stop the bleeding and save their companies, while Andrew Levy, 51, and David Neeleman, 61, were just starting up — launching the first two new U.S. airlines in more than a decade — during a global pandemic.
They are both betting their low prices and smaller, no-hassle airport destinations will be enough to win over customers during the summer post-lockdown travel surge.
Levy described starting Avelo Airlines as an “itch” that he’s “wanted scratched for a really long time.” It started 27 years ago when he began working with the founders of now-defunct ValuJet.
“They built this phenomenal business that just grew like crazy and I had a front-row seat to watch it all,” he told ABC News. “I got to see capitalism at work in front of me, and see what happens when we take risks and we progress with hard work. I thought I want to be like those guys, I want to be the ones who start with the company.”
In January 2020, taking what he learned from Allegiant and United, Levy got the green light from the Department of Transportation to start Avelo.
Then, COVID-19 hit.
“It was a little bit of a shock for all of us,” Levy said about watching the number of fliers dwindle, but “I probably was less affected by that than many of my investors. I kind of was always optimistic that it would come roaring back.”
At its lowest point, less than 100,000 people were flying each day nationwide. Airlines scrambled to pull flights out of smaller airports, causing some, like Hollywood Burbank Airport, to lose service.
“We were fortunate enough to have the opportunity to go in there because of COVID,” he said. “So many airlines cutback service there, and as a result we can go in there at a level of service with airplanes that we couldn’t have done a couple of years ago.”
Avelo began service in April and plans to fly 11 routes between Burbank and vacation destinations this summer, mostly on the West Coast, for as little as $19.
David Neeleman’s Breeze Airways launched a month later and will carry leisure travelers in the eastern and southern parts of the country. Breeze’s fares start at $39.
“There’s a ton of pent-up demand,” Neeleman told ABC News, “and there’s a lot of money people didn’t spend during the pandemic.”
The JetBlue founder only had 55 people on the payroll at Breeze when demand plummeted.
“We had the foot on the gas and the brake at the same time,” he said. “And I said we just have to ease into this and there’s no reason to launch an airline at the heat of the pandemic. You have to have some kind of vision or foresight to look ahead, and try not to seize up in the moment when things are at their worst.”
His team worked with regulators virtually “spread out all over on Zoom.”
“Just getting an airline certified under normal circumstances is a feat that is very difficult,” he said, “and has rarely been done over the last 20 years.”
Neeleman’s vision for Breeze is getting travelers to their destination “twice as fast for half the price” choosing to establish non-stop routes between smaller airports like Hartford, Connecticut, and Charleston, South Carolina, that would have otherwise required a layover.
“When you don’t have to worry about your flight getting canceled or delayed or missing your connection and all the stress that goes with it, then people just travel more often,” Neeleman said.
Like other low-cost carriers, Breeze and Avelo will both charge for baggage fees and additional legroom.
“Our mission is to inspire travel,” Levy said. “We want to inspire travel by making it easy to do so, and that is really low fares, but also just a convenient, pleasant experience.”
(NEW YORK) — Former President Donald Trump’s long-serving chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, has surrendered to authorities in New York to face criminal charges, court officials told ABC News Thursday morning.
Weisselberg arrived at the Manhattan District Attorney’s office with his lawyer hours after a grand jury indicted him and the Trump Organization on charges that are expected to be unsealed Thursday afternoon.
A special grand jury in Manhattan voted Wednesday to indict Trump’s firm and its chief financial officer.
The charges are believed to involve fringe benefits given to employees, including Weisselberg, sources said. Investigators have been examining whether the company and Weisselberg properly accounted for those forms of compensation.
“Allen Weisselberg is a loving and devoted husband, father and grandfather who has worked at the Trump Organization for 48 years,” a spokesperson for the Trump Organization said in a statement Thursday after Weisselberg surrendered to authorities. “He is now being used by the Manhattan District Attorney as a pawn in a scorched earth attempt to harm the former President. The District Attorney is bringing a criminal prosecution involving employee benefits that neither the IRS nor any other District Attorney would ever think of bringing. This is not justice; this is politics.”
Attorneys for the former president’s company were told to expect charges last week by Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance’s staff, sources said.
Trump has called the charges “completely outrageous” and dismissed the investigation as being a politically-motivated “witch hunt.”
(NEW YORK) — A new pill is bringing hope for mothers struggling with postpartum depression.
On Wednesday, scientists from The Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research announced that results from phase 3 of a clinical trial for the drug, zuranolone, are showing promising results.
The findings, which were published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) Psychiatry, show that after two weeks of daily treatment using zuranolone, women treated with the medication had a “statistically significant reduction in their core symptoms of depression compared to women who received a placebo.”
The placebo-controlled clinical trial, which was led by Kristina Deligiannidis, MD., looked at 153 randomized patients from 33 centers across the U.S. It was given to female patients between the ages of 18 and 45 with perinatal major depressive episodes for 14 days.
The patient’s depressive symptoms were scored at various points in the study for 45 days. Of the 153 randomized patients, 76 people were given the placebo and 77 were given zuranolone orally, nightly for two weeks during the trial.
At day 45, 53% of women who received zuranolone were in full remission of clinical depression versus 30% who received the placebo.
“These encouraging results are an important step in efforts to develop a novel treatment option for patients who suffer from this prevalent condition,” said Dr. Deligiannidis in a statement.
If approved, zuranolone would be the first pill to treat postpartum depression. It would also be much handier than other treatments.
Currently, there’s only one drug on the market that’s approved by the Food and Drug Administration to treat postpartum depression, which affects one out of eight women in the U.S., and it’s only available through infusion, which can be cumbersome for newborn mothers to receive.
(NEW YORK) — The World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are out of step in their COVID-19 mask guidance, prompting confusion.
In light of sky-rocketing cases of the COVID-19 Delta variant around the globe, last week the WHO called for all vaccinated people to continue to wear masks.
The CDC, however, has not followed suit. The U.S. agency still sticks by its guidance — announced in May — for vaccinated people to relinquish their masks in indoor and outdoor settings, so long as it’s been two weeks after their last shot of the vaccine. Unvaccinated people are supposed to continue wearing their masks and social distancing.
Why is the WHO advising masks for vaccinated people?
At a press conference on Friday, the WHO said that the rise of new variants made it necessary to pull out all the stops against the virus, particularly in places that had let down their guard.
The WHO, which watches the pandemic with a global lens, was considering the large majority of the world that’s unvaccinated or has less-effective vaccines. The organization also pointed out the disparities in vaccination statuses. In comparison, the U.S. has only been able to lift restrictions on businesses, reopen cities and discontinue mask mandates because of its access to hundreds of millions of vaccines.
Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director-general of the WHO, said it was now “even more urgent that we use all the tools at our disposal” in the global fight against the coronavirus.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, chief medical adviser to President Joe Biden, described the rest of the world as “fundamentally an unvaccinated planet” in an interview with ABC News on Tuesday, when he was asked about the daylight between the two organization’s guidance.
“There are some countries that are doing well, but many, many countries have very little vaccination,” Fauci said.
That means that even vaccinated people are potentially surrounded by high levels of COVID-19, including the rapidly spreading variant, which could increase the chance of breakthrough cases, especially in countries where the vaccines are less effective.
But in the U.S., the two most common vaccines have shown to work fairly well against the variant.
Current studies have shown that the full dosage of the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines — the Pfizer and Moderna shots — are effective against the Delta variant. According to a recent study out of the U.K., while a single dose of the Pfizer vaccine provided 33% protection against symptomatic disease from the Delta variant, two doses offered 88% protection. More studies are being done on the efficacy of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine against the Delta variant, though it has showed a strong response against past variants it was tested on.
The U.S. has pledged to share 80 million vaccines with the rest of the world by the end of June, though it’s currently behind on its timeline.
What has the CDC said in response?
Vaccinated people in the U.S. are still safe to the point that masks are not needed, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said Wednesday on ABC’s Good Morning America.
“The vaccinated, we believe, still are safe,” Walensky said.
But Walensky hedged that her recommendation was broad — taking into account the entirety of the country, both where rates for fully vaccinated adults are above 70%, and where they’re below 40% — so she urged local public health departments to make their own decisions based on the variant spread in their own communities and the willingness of people to get the vaccine.
“We have always said that this virus is an opportunist and in areas where we still have rates of low vaccination, that is where the virus is likely to take hold,” Walensky said. “We are still seeing uptick in cases in areas of low vaccination.”
That’s exactly what Los Angeles did on Monday, when they announced a return to indoor masking for everyone, vaccinated or not, after discovering that cases of the Delta variant made up nearly half of all the cases sequenced in the county, or one in every five new infections.
About half of the county is fully vaccinated, according to the CDC.
The County of Los Angeles Public Health recommended masks for indoor shopping, movie theaters and workplaces — any public location where “you don’t know everyone’s vaccination status” — as an extra step to stop the spread, beyond vaccines.
“Until we better understand how and to who the Delta variant is spreading, everyone should focus on maximum protection with minimum interruption to routine as all businesses operate without other restrictions, like physical distancing and capacity limits,” the department wrote in a press release.
Fauci, like Walensky, encouraged the decision to be made locally “if they feel that the level of spread of the Delta variant is really profound in their particular region,” he said.
People can also think about their individual levels of comfort, particularly if they are elderly or immunocompromised, which can lessen the effectiveness of the vaccines and heighten the risk of COVID-19, he added.
If the data changes, the CDC will update its guidance, Fauci said.
“We know from good studies that the Delta variant is protected against by the vaccines that fundamentally are being used here. And that’s the reason why the CDC feels at this point they should not change their recommendation,” he said.
“But right now the recommendation remains the same. These are very, very effective vaccines. So if ever there was a clarion call of why one should get vaccinated, it’s the threat of the Delta variant, because if you are unvaccinated, you clearly are at risk from a problematic virus that’s spreading more rapidly,” he added.
The vaccination rate nationwide has fallen by 20% in the last week. Currently, about 66% of all adults in the U.S. over 18 have received one shot and that rises to 88% for seniors over 65.
The states with the lowest vaccination rates are Mississippi, Louisiana, Wyoming and Alabama, where 50% or less of adults have gotten one shot of the vaccine, about 15% less than the nation as a whole.
That said, Walensky was still supportive of a celebratory Independence Day weekend, which she said was well-deserved after 16 months of fear and pain.
“I think we have a lot to be grateful for come July Fourth,” she said.
“Vaccinated people can take off their masks and celebrate July 4th and feel safe in doing so, see each other and smile again. And then we will have to continue the hard work we’re doing to get people vaccinated,” she said.
Where exactly is the Delta variant spreading in the US?
Unfortunately, it’s everywhere. The Delta variant has been found in all 50 states, as of Wednesday. Some places have more cases than others — and it’s very clear why: Low vaccination rates.
As of June 19, the highly transmissible variant accounts for 26.1% of new cases, up from approximately 3% of new cases just over a month ago.
But in regions of the country making up most of the West and Midwest, the proportion of Delta variant cases is estimated to be twice that, at above 50% of cases, according to a CDC estimate. Those regions include Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Colorado, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah and Wyoming.
All of these states have less than 50% of their total population fully vaccinated, with the exception of Colorado, which recently surpassed the halfway mark.
Dr. Ashish Jha, dean of Brown University’s School of Public Health, told the New York Times that he would be more careful if he were in some of those states that had low vaccination rates, despite being fully vaccinated.
“I would not be excited about going indoors without wearing a mask — even though I’m vaccinated,” he told the Times.
Jha, like many in public health, has used the impending threat of the Delta variant to push the fastest solution: vaccines for everyone who is eligible.
“Vaccines are a way out and I continue to be concerned at how many people are holding off on getting vaccinated when it is so much safer to be vaccinated now than not,” he said on CNN.
