Model Tess Holliday, who has posed nude before to protest what she feels are stigmas attached to people who are overweight, decided to post a nude photo of herself to champion women’s equality in conjunction with the Women’s March events taking place over the weekend. Shot by her husband Nick, the photo shows Holliday from the back and was posted on his Instagram account, then reposted by his wife.
Nick wrote, “Women deserve respect, whether they are completely naked or covered head to toe,” adding that the couple had planned the photo weeks before but then decided to release it over the weekend. He revealed, “I’m too sick to march, so I worked on this photo we shot a few weeks ago to post today. No alterations to her body or bare face have been made.”
Last August, Holliday posed nude from the waist up to send the message that “fat people have sex.” She wrote of the photographs, “When I saw them, & how hot (& obviously unretouched) they are, I was reminded of a ‘Tess Holliday’s Advice for Life’ that are all throughout my book. It goes: “Fat people have sex. A lot of it. And it’s really f***ing good.”
In May 2016, eight months pregnant, Tess posed nude, telling the U.K. newspaper The Telegraph, “Just because we’re plus size, doesn’t mean we have to prove that we’re healthy, just as someone who is smaller than us or average size doesn’t have to prove they are healthy. We should be able to exist in our bodies. I am technically healthy but my body is no more valid than someone’s who isn’t.”