Daisy Ridley fights back against body shaming on Instagram

Daisy Ridley became a role model for women everywhere after her performance in Star Wars: The Force Awakens. After an incident on Instagram yesterday, the actress proved herself as a body positive role model off-screen, too.

Daisy, 23, responded to a meme that features a picture of her character, Rey. The meme criticized her for setting “unrealistic expectations. . . for young girls” and that “real women have curves.” Ridley initially posted a screenshot of the post with the caption “‘Real women’ are all shapes and sizes, all ethnicities, all levels of brave, have families, don’t have families. I am a ‘real woman’ like every other woman in this world.”

However, that post included the screen name of the person who posted it, and that person soon started receiving an influx of hate messages from her fans. So Daisy took her post down and then posted a lengthy editorial on Instagram that stuck to her initial points but without a potential attack on others, captioning it with a request to stop sending messages to the original poster.

“People who relate to something in Rey [sic] they haven’t found in a female character before,” she wrote in her second message. “People who’s daughters now think they can do things without the aid of a man, but who wouldn’t be ashamed to ask for help.”

Daisy added that she refuses to apologize for her body or her appearance because “what’s happening inside is much more important anyway.” She continued:

Thank you, Daisy Ridley, for highlighting that body shaming can happen to anyone, of any body shape or size — and for continuing to preach the incredibly important message of self-love and body positivity to girls and women everywhere.