Ever since Showtime’s psychological thriller drama, Yellowjackets, premiered, it has been inundated with countless glowing reviews from critics and the general audience. But while the majority has been beyond impressed with the cast’s impressive performances, some have been busy targeting its leading star, actress Melanie Lynskey, with negative comments about her body. Thankfully, both Lynsky and her husband, Jason Ritter, have finally fired back at the haters with a fitting reply.
Though the year is 2022 and the world has seemingly moved past their obsession with judging someone’s talent based on how thin they are, there are still instances when some revert to being body-shaming trolls. Since Melanie Lynskey became a part of Yellowjackets, she has been forced to tolerate unwanted advice about her body from people pretending to care about her health. After she recently took to Twitter to slam people who think being thin equals being healthy, her husband, Jason Ritter, also seconded her statement. He called out anyone harboring “further unsolicited comments” about others’ bodies and chimed in with his “suggestion” about what they should do next.
Ritter’s tweet comes after Lynskey shared on Twitter how being bombarded with negative comments about her body has been “the story of my life” since she came under the spotlight with Yellowjackets’ debut on Showtime.
“Most egregious are the ‘I care about her health!!’ people… b— you don’t see me on my Peloton! You don’t see me running through the park with my child. Skinny does not always equal healthy,” she wrote.
Sadly, online body-shaming trolls are not the only ones that Lynskey has to put up with. In an interview with Rolling Stone earlier in January, she shared that a member of the Showtime series’ production team brazenly advised her to lose weight.
“They were asking me, ‘What do you plan to do? I’m sure the producers will get you a trainer. They’d love to help you with this,’” Lynskey shared, adding that her Yellowjackets co-stars, Tawny Cypress, Christina Ricci, and Juliette Lewis came to her defense at the time. In fact, Lewis even penned a letter to the producers, bringing the insensitive behavior of the team member to their notice.
As she has been the target of trolls off-screen, Lynskey made sure that her character, Shauna, in Yellowjackets never negatively commented on or felt disappointed by her body. She wanted her character to be “just comfortable and sexual” so she could be the representation that women need to embrace themselves without letting the comments of others bring down their confidence.
