Ashley Graham has defended calling herself a 'big girl' in her latest naked bathroom selfie.
On October 18, the world-renowned 32-year-old plus-sized model shared a nude bathroom selfie with her 11.5 million Instagram followers, showing her posing naked in front of her bathroom mirror, and captioned the photo "nakie big girl. [sic]"
Although Graham's picture managed to gain over a million likes on the social media platform, some of the model's followers took umbrage over Graham's use of the word "big" in her caption.
For example, one irate commenter wrote:
"All I see is a socially acceptable 'thick girl' This isn’t helping any real big girls. This is just giving everyone the idea that a 'big' girl just has a little chubby belly & nice sexy hips. [sic]"
Meanwhile, another detractor chimed in: "This caption is almost offensive to actual big girls. I wish terms big, small, skinny, fat..... were just plain left out. We can compliment ourselves and others without those descriptions."
However, per The Independent, Graham later wrote in the comments and replied to one of her critics, writing:
"I hear what you’re saying. But if you look at ‘big’ as a positive or love then you can see it like I do. I love my big strong beautiful body. Love you girlie."
However, other fans were more positive about the post. For instance, one Instagram user wrote: "You’re so inspirational, I can’t even begin to explain it."
They continued: "As a girl who struggles to embrace her body, seeing women like you stand up and embrace your own beauty makes me feel a bit better about myself and my own body. Thank you."
Ashley recently flaunted her post-partum body in this stunning Instagram video:Meanwhile, someone else added: "First: you are so beautiful. Second: you have no idea how this photo, and many others, encourages me.
"I am literally in tears typing this. Thank you for reminding me, that I am beautiful exactly as I am - not as magazines or other media may try to make me think."
This isn't the first candid selfie that Ashley has posted, and I have a feel it won't be the last either; no matter what her haters might think...