Braless singer slams critics who say her natural breasts need more 'lift': 'My natural t**s hang and I love it'
Singer-songwriter Tanerélle Stephens snapped back at critics who told her to "lift" her breasts after she attended the BET Awards this week braless and in a plunging dress.
The singer, 24, showed off her cleavage and sideboob as she posed on the blue carpet donning a black and gold patterned mini-dress at Sunday's event, Daily Mail reports.
However, she was heavily mocked online for her outfit.
But Stephens clapped back on social media saying she loved that her natural breasts hang.
"To all the negative comments about today’s look, I don’t need to lift my breast to wear a f******g dress," she wrote on Twitter. "I’m a woman and my natural t**s hang and I f*****g love it and I have no intention of changing it to suit your gaze. I’m out here living my dreams focus on better things."
She affixed a photo alongside her tweet, striking a pose in her dress and on the blue carpet before the event that night.
Stephens also shared a screenshot of her tweet on Instagram and expanded on why she decided to forgo brassiere or tape.
"According to some I missed a critical step yesterday when getting ready," she wrote. "What they don’t know is I literally had a fat a** piece of tape stuck from the bottom of my left boob to the top of my shoulder, looked at it & made a conscious decision to take it off because I actually loved the way my natural breasts looked in comparison to the "perfect" option..."
"Last time I checked what I thought about how I look was all that mattered, so I’m gonna keep going with that cause it’d be f*****g impossible to please EVERYONE when it comes to ME," she added. "I can’t be everyone’s favorite and I don’t wanna be, but as long as I’m able to go home and feel yummy about myself, especially from the self hate that I’ve spent my life growing out of...I’m f*****g GOOD."
The singer, whose hit number "In Women We Trust" is played in H&M stores, said she is concerned about women who feel unworthy because of their appearance.
"What I do care about is noticing that so many women are still stuck in a daze of self-hate, people pleasing and projecting how you feel about you in an attempt to make someone feel the same," she explained. "What I care about is that there are women out there still allowing the male gaze to determine their worth and what they can and can’t do. This reminder of socialized minds in regards to a woman’s body always rocks me a bit, but it’s not gonna knock me down."
"It just intensifies my mission of pushing self-care and self-love even more," she continued. "You owe it to yourself to at least try to embrace the parts of you which you don’t like because someone else said you shouldn’t."
"Your body, no matter what it looks like is doing all it can everyday [sic] to keep you alive and thriving, that to me deserves all the f*****g love and care I can give, so I’m gonna," she advised.
Concluding her post, Stephens celebrated breasts of all shapes and sizes.
"Cheers to the t**s!!! Small t**s, big t**s, fake t**s, no t**s, all t**s! And cheers to being a f*****g woman," she wrote.
That said, many women resonated with the model's message and thanked her for giving them the confidence to get rid of their brassiere.
"From a naturally gifted woman, myself, who was trying on bathing suits yesterday afternoon and didn't purchase 1 b/c I thought my boobs were too 'saggy', I say THANK YOU!" one Twitter user commented. "Your powerful words have moved me enough to go back, purchase 1 and not give a F*(& !!!!"
"I'm never gonna wear a bra ever again, the child has given me freedom," another user commented. "The damn thing is extremely uncomfortable anyway, I don't remember ever enjoying a bra on my skin."
Stephens' tweet has received over 60,000 retweets and more than 285,000 likes since Sunday night.