Judas Priest’s Rob Halford shares his take against body shaming

Judas Priest frontman Rob Halford has shared his tender take on body shaming and his experience with body acceptance.

The stalwart rocker recently sat down with A Gay And A Nongay podcast, where he offered his advice to those that feel that the don’t meet the body standards that permeate through LGBTQ+ culture.

“I think that the whole body shaming and imaging is just as prevalent in the straight world as it is in the gay world. You always have to have somebody with a six-pack on [on the cover of] a gay mag, and that’s wrong,” he mused. “You always have to have some beautiful, slim, gorgeous woman on [the cover of] a straight magazine or whatever. It’s just mad that we’re still at that place. Just push by that, ’cause it’s fluff — it really is fluff. It has no relevance whatsoever.”

Halford went on to give kudos to those that keep up a fitness routine, but emphasised the importance of treating oneself with kindness.

“If you’re a person who wants to keep fit — and I’ve got some really fit straight friends — I admire that; I admire your conviction to doing these great things for yourself and for your body, because it does have a knock-on effect,” he continued. “But in terms of the level of it being superficial and not really, really being important, yeah, we need to look at that differently. And over the years, it’s gotten a little better, for girls who are plus size, for example, and there’s a whole broader acceptance, as there should be.

“Look, this is your body. Be proud of it. Be proud of the way you look, the way you are, ’cause you’re a beautiful person. It’s not what the outside is about; it’s the inside that matters — [what you have] in your heart and in your mind.”

Halford is critical of the harsh aesthetic standards prevalent of media, musing: “I’m all for pushing back at that kind of theory,” Halford added. “And especially over here [in the U.S.]. I mean, you look at some of the newscasters; they’re like movies stars — they’ve gotta look like a movie star. And I’m, like, ‘What is that all about?’ So it varies from place to place.”