Beyond the obvious laziness of reducing fat people to on-screen caricatures and comedic relief, the sort of writing that Ferreira suggested she left Euphoria in order to avoid has also been actively harmful to plus-size actors. In February, Rebel Wilson revealed that her Pitch Perfect contract explicitly prohibited her from losing weight. “You can’t lose—I think it’s not more than 10 pounds, or gain more than 10 pounds,” Wilson recalled, explaining that her contract had trapped her in a box to the detriment of her mental and physical health. “I was stereotyped in playing that fat, funny friend, which is so hard, because I love those roles.”

Advertisement

Ferreira has also spoken pretty openly about her thoughts on body image and navigating the notoriously sizeist, cutthroat entertainment industry as a non-rail-thin woman. She told WhoWhatWear in 2022 that she was sometimes frustrated by “backhanded compliments” about her body and fans’ attempts to label her as a sort of body positivity icon, when she’s just trying to be herself. “It’s not radical for me to be wearing a crop top,” Ferreira told the magazine.

She explained that she often faces pressure to be “this person who ‘loves themselves,’” as it’s something “people just assume,” leaving her confused. “What—did I say that? I never said that.…You posted that on me,” she said.