Ariana Grande gave us a great example of just how ridiculous the “war on obesity” can become:
First, she went with her boyfriend to get some donuts:
For reasons passing understanding, she decided to lick some of the donuts that were on display on the counter, not tell anyone, and then buy other non-licked donuts.
She was caught on tape licking the donuts while making disparaging remarks about people from the US.
So she was forced to make an apology:
I am EXTREMELY proud to be an American and I’ve always made it clear that I love my country. What I said in a private moment with my friend, who was buying the donuts, was taken out of context and I am sorry for not using more discretion with my choice of words.
First of all, what difference does it make who was buying the donuts? Whatever. This would probably have been ok, but she couldn’t stop herself there:
As an advocate for healthy eating, food is very important to me and I sometimes get upset by how freely we as Americans eat and consume things without giving any thought to the consequences that it has on our health and society as a whole.
The fuck? Lady, you licked donuts on a donut shop counter, then you bought different donuts, leaving the donuts you licked behind. I can’t think of anyone whose thoughts about food and health are less relevant to this discussion in this moment. But she couldn’t stop there either:
The fact that the United States has the highest child obesity rate in the world frustrates me. We need to do more to educate ourselves and our children about the dangers of overeating and the poison we put in our bodies.
The actual fuck? I have to wonder if she arrived at this on her own or if some adviser was like “blame fat people, no…wait, blame fat kids that will totally work!” Like fat kids don’t face enough bullying, now we’re to believe that their mere existence has lead poor frustrated Ariana to lick donuts on a shop counter, then buy other donuts and eat them, as a way to educate about healthy foods (which, I would think, should include access to foods that haven’t been licked by a stranger.)
But wait, there’s more. In a second apology video called “sorry babes” she said:
“I kind of missed my opportunity to actually sincerely apologize and express how I was feeling because I was too busy preaching about my feelings with the food industry, which is not, like, relative,”
No, it’s not, like, relative. Hell, it’s not even relevant. How about instead of “Sorry but OMGDEATHFATZARECOMINGFORUS OMGFATKIDS!” just saying “I’m sorry that I licked donuts that were on a counter, and didn’t admit it until I was caught on tape and those donuts had been sold to other people. Wow, I am really a massive fuck up.”
This is the world that the “War on Obesity” has wrought, where “But fat people!” is accepted as a reason/excuse for everything from the suspension of scientific method/all logical thought, to practicing experimental medicine on kids, to calling for the eradication of fat people, to a pop star licking donuts. Fat people are not political punching bags, we are not yours for the metaphoring, we’re not a convenient way to distract from your donut licking behavior. Fat people are, in fact, people. We deserve to be treated with basic human dignity and we have the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. So if you want to lick some donuts, you’re on your own – leave fat people out of it.
Like the blog? More Cool Stuff!
Book and Dance Class Sale! I’m on a journey to complete an IRONMAN triathlon, and I’m having a sale on all my books, DVDs, and digital downloads to help pay for it. You get books and dance classes, I get spandex clothes and bike parts. Everybody wins! If you want, you can check it out here!
Like my work? Want to help me keep doing it? Become a Member! For ten bucks a month you can support size diversity activism, help keep the blog ad free, and get deals from size positive businesses as a thank you. Click here for details
Book Me! I’d love to speak to your organization. You can get more information on topics, previous engagements and reviews here or just e-mail me at ragen at danceswithfat dot org!
I’m training for an IRONMAN! You can follow my journey at www.IronFat.com
A movie about my time as a dancer is in active development, you can follow the progress on Facebook!
If you are uncomfortable with my offering things for sale on this site, you are invited to check out this post.
Dances With Fat 
Translation: “I was apocalyptically shitfaced drunk and/or stoned.”
Even when I was so high on my pain pills that I literally thought it was a good idea to go for a walk around my neighborhood in my underwear in the middle of the night, it would NEVER have occurred to me to go to a food-store, LICK THE MERCHANDISE, and then leave the licked merchandise there for other people to buy and consume, while I bought fresh, unlicked merchandise for myself.
Had it occurred to me at all to lick the donuts on the counter, I would have promptly bought them, myself, and ate them, myself.
EYURRGHGHH!
TL;DR: I don’t believe that being drunk and/or stoned is enough of an excuse for her horrible behavior. What she did is just plain anti-social and WRONG on so many levels. And her “apology” just makes it all worse.
I’m very glad to hear you’ve never licked baked goods that were then sold to someone else. You’ll notice that I didn’t say being drunk and/or stoned excuses such behavior, merely that it explains it. What I find most humorous in the situation is her frantic SOMETHING SOMETHING FAT KIDS ass-covering, as if that makes more sense than being drunk, or excuses her actions.
I know! I’ve done silly things while high on pain meds (which is why I am responsible, and only take them while supervised and in a safe location), and have said, “Whoopsie! I was high.” Not an excuse, but an explanation for the “What the heck were you thinking?” questions that come after. I don’t blame other people for it.
When I’m on my pills, I try to just stay quiet in my room. And when I DO something (like jumping rope, because I can’t feel the back pain), the question “What were you THINKING?” is generally shortened to, “What were you… When did you take your pill?” So, yeah, drugs could be an explanation.
Frankly, I think she’s just a jerk. There’s an old joke that taking drugs “intensifies your personality.” “Yeah, but what if you’re an a-hole?”
If she had said, “Whoopsie! I was stoned. Let me pay reparations,” I would have just chalked it up as another “Weird news” story, and forgotten all about it in a minute.
Blaming fat kids for her actions? THERE IS NO LOGIC!
If she says donuts are poison, then why on earth did she actually want to ingest some herself? No. Logic. None.
She’s just so treat deprived, she couldn’t resist licking them, lol.
Funny… I’m a fat adult. I was a fat kid. I NEVER RANDOMLY LICKED FOOD IN A STORE! Ever!
Strangely enough, neither did I, and I too am a fat adult that was once a fat kid.
I’m the childhood obesity crisis all grown up, and shockingly enough, I too, can say with 100% confidence I have never randomly licked or eaten food off the shelf of a store, let alone put my nasty discarded fragments back for other customers to purchase.
You can add me to this list. Fat kid/adult who never…did that.
Funny enough, this fat woman is shameless enough to pre-purchase the donuts I might want to lick.
It’s amazing to me that we even have to EXPLAIN to ANYONE how Donutlicker’s various failures of hygiene, logic and manners have nothing to do with anyone but herself!
I agree this is a new low. She should have been arrested. Not for her stupidity, which is massive, but for being a danger to public health.
That’s what I’m thinking. What if she has some communicable disease that she left with her donutlicking evildoerism! Also fat kid/adult never tongue-vandalizing any thing, donut or no.
I’m guessing that she never addressed the donut-licking at the direction of her manager and attorney, considering it’s criminal behavior. Not that you need to admit it if it’s on video.
There was so much dumb and insane about her behavior — not the least of which is her genuine shock at finding trays of donuts in a donut store.
But yeah, you’re right. In terms of public health, I’m pretty sure that donut-licking typhoid-Mary pop stars are a greater risk to public health than fat kids are. And even if they weren’t, it wasn’t fat kids standing in the store licking donuts, so leave them out of it.
So, I had to Google to find out that this was a famous person. Just sayin’
I know. It’s kind of hard to boycott a person, when you’re already not buying any of their stuff.
Is it too punny to say “She takes the cake…donut”? I just had to take a moment for laughter, because her actions and her words infuriate me. She decides to create a health risk then turns around and blames fat kids/people? Thanks but no thanks, Ariana Grande – you can take responsibility for your own actions. I refuse to do so.
I’m with you. The donut-licking itself is gross and unsanitary, but I’d have just chalked it up to “well, that’s weird” and not given it another thought. But then she had to give an “apology” that blames other peoples’ EXISTENCE for her bad behavior, and it’s just like… if they turned fatphobic projection into an Olympic sport, her “apology” would have won gold. Hell, forget gold; they’d have to make a new platinum medal for the level of projection it takes to jump the counter at a pastry shop and wolf down the product, then say you did it because *fat people* can’t control themselves around food.
Except… If she had actually wolfed down the donuts, it wouldn’t have been so bad. Wrong, yes, but not as bad as what she did. What she did was spread her who-knows-what-diseased germs to unsuspecting patrons, who THOUGHT they were buying fresh new donuts.
Eating the food before it’s paid for is shoplifting. What she did was biological terrorism.
And then she blamed her germ-spreading on the existence of fat people who “can’t control themselves around food,” yet consistently exercise more self-control than she.
You have a point.
Thank you for writing this – I was so filled with rage at so many aspects of this incident I could barely verbalize my feelings on it. Licking donuts and leaving them? A-HOLE! Blame fat kids?? SUPER A-HOLE! I didn’t give a crap what she said about Americans, those are her problems/opinions, but all the other stuff – seriously inexcusable.
She’s talking about people putting poison into their bodies, and she’s creating it by contaminating food and not reporting it. Nice.
I’m still trying to follow her thought process here. That is, if we take her word for it that she had some *intent* related to fat people when she licked food and left it out for sale?
1- Desires doughnuts.
2- Goes on a journey to a place specifically for doughnuts.
3- Sees doughnuts.
4- ?????? Something something fat people??? Something something fat kids don’t deserve the same treats she apparently does?????? Something something making food unsanitary and letting unknowing people purchase it will somehow cure obesity????????????
5- Licks random doughnuts.
I just… I can’t follow it. It’s like something short-circuited when she saw the doughnuts or something. Could it be a guilt thing? Like, she felt guilty for eating what society has taught her is an immoral food and so made herself feel *more moral* by… being fecking disgusting and a public health risk?
I mean… who knows who purchased those doughnuts in the end! It could be some working parent with three jobs struggling to make ends meet, who decided to give their kids some small treat because life is HARD when you’re on a low income. It could be someone immuno-compromised who will now get sick because of what she did. It could be someone who bought one specific doughnut that meets their allergy requirements, not knowing said doughnut has been smeared with a saliva-based mixture of the tops of several doughnuts that are not safe for them, and who ended up needing to go to hospital as a result. It could be a big, challenging thing for someone recovering from an eating disorder, who wants to try and see if they can buy – and perhaps even eat a little of – something that is a huge trigger for them normally.
Or it could be a fat person. Who could ALSO BE ANY ONE OR EVEN SEVERAL OF THOSE ABOVE THINGS AND WHO STILL DESERVES TO NOT EAT FOOD THAT IS GROSS.
This!
I think it’s giving her too much credit to believe her ridiculous self-serving explanation. She licked them because she was drunk and/or stoned, it had nothing to do with obesity, and she made up a bunch of ludicrous ass-covering horseshit about fat kids after she sobered up and got caught.
Maybe I can give a little more context about what happened between #2 and #4. The donut licking happened while the shop employee was getting a tray of donuts from the back. When the employee set down the tray of very large donuts, our protagonist said “What the fuck is that? I hate America. I hate Americans.”
Like so many others, she equates indulgent food with American culture and fat people. Never mind that she’s an American herself. I’ve been seeing this a lot lately and have even had it directed at me in the form of someone looking me up and down and then snickering “…’Murica” to his friend – as if people like me are emblematic of everything that’s wrong with America. Lately it seems like people assume that if you’re fat, you’re ignorant, socially conservative and generally docile and complacent. I’m willing to bet that I’m more educated, politically active and socially radical than my detractor. I 100% guarantee that most fat Americans are more of all of the above than Ariana Grande.
Some people seem to believe that large portions are strictly an American thing, and no other people in any other part of the world ever serve large portions.
These people obviously don’t travel much. I’ve seen plenty big portions served elsewhere, even in Europe.
Yupp, we have pretty big servings in Europe! If someone wants to take this fact to make an argument about the unfairness of ressources-distribution on this planet, go ahead, but unsanitary behaviour is not a statement, it’s just digusting.^^
Also, did she not say something about the donuts *her friend was buying* or wanted to buy?
This, to me, reads like “I, *of course* would never buy junk like this, so let me just voice my disgust at people who do and punish them by licking their gross, oversized donuts like a 4year old having a tantrum, because the world is not concurrent with my morals/issues around food.”
Of course, I might be over-interpreting, but I feel even “I was high” would be a better reason, if not an excuse…
“Lately it seems like people assume that if you’re fat, you’re ignorant, socially conservative and generally docile and complacent.”
The different varities of fatphobia are practically a Rorschach test; you can tell a lot about a fatphobe by what kind of ridiculous accusation they just pulled out of their ass to throw at you. Are they whining that your rich, indulgent overconsumption takes food from the poor and causes climate change? Liberal. Are they whining that your lazy welfare state takes their hard-earned tax dollars and causes ‘everybody-gets-a-trophy’ mediocrity? Conservative. Are they whining that they want a donut and these dirty-naughty feelings must be your fault? Ariana Grande. Whatever they hate and fear most, in both others and themselves, they puke all over you, trying to make your fat into an effigy because it looks like it’d be easier to fight than whatever’s really bothering them.
I ask fatphobes of all stripes and varities to kindly keep their baggage off my carousel and their shit off my fat body.
hahah This made me laugh so hard! You really nailed it!
Well, and along with everything else, I am a fat person who has not eaten a donut in several years now. Why? Because I am working hard at *eating food that is healthy for someone with elevated glucose* — note that I did NOT say “eating healthy” full stop because that means different things for different people’s health situations. I am trying to keep my blood sugar under control, so I don’t eat donuts; or bagels; or various other things that I used to love. So, Ms. Gross Donut Licking Whoever the Hell You Are*, please do NOT go around preaching about how obese people don’t “eat healthy foods.” Some of us do, some of us don’t … just like thin people. Wrap your tiny mind around that.
* I’d never heard of her until I read this post.
I haven’t eaten donuts in years because they just make me hungrier, and they’re boring. A nice apple fritter for dessert, maybe.
Also, licking other people’s food in order to punish them for liking it is disgusting.
Well she makes no sense.
This is the most ridiculous thing that I have ever heard blamed on fat people.
“This is the most ridiculous thing that I have ever heard blamed on fat people.”
I know, right? And that’s actually saying A LOT considering how much they love to blame on fat people.
I actually really loved Rob Lowe’s response to her “apology/blame fat kids video”:
“As my grandpa would say: “Yeah, sure. Pull the other leg, it plays jingle bells!” #Lame” https://twitter.com/RobLowe/status/618882358293311488
The sad part is though “Health officials also announced they would investigate the doughnut shop to see why the baked goods were left exposed to the public, a violation of local food safety codes.” -Great, so they’re punishing a shop owner (who probably struggles enough as it is to pay their bills) for the behavior of a rich, spoiled, fat-phobic, woman. Good job, Ariana, nice work.
Though this is exactly the sort of behavior that necessitates most places having a code for unwashable food items (like baked goods as opposed to fruit) to be in a cabinet, under a counter or lid. It keeps CHILDREN or others WITH NO URGE CONTROL from touching (or,ugh, licking) the merchandise and keeps flies from stomping and barfing on it.
Kindly lick the donuts you have already purchased.
And, if you can’t say something nice or kind about someone, just keep quiet.
Everybody knows these things because moms throughout time have imparted these rules to their children.
Her Mom must be so proud right now.
Lolz. Now I just want donuts.
If one of my children had ever done this, I’d have made them purchase whatever they touched. You just do not do that. If you ruin something, you pay for it. Of course, none of my kids ever did anything like this. It is something maybe an undisciplined 3 year old might try, but one lesson and it would stop. Giving her a platform to spout “reasons” for her behavior was a bad idea. Just charge her with the crime she committed and ban her from the shop for life.
I did some follow up reading on a couple of articles – looks like the donut shop lost a letter grade to their health rating because of this girl-child’s shenanigans. And her fans are posting pictures of themselves licking donuts and calling what she did “brave”. …yeah. I would say “monkey see monkey do” but I think in this case it would be an insult to monkeys.
How about “stupid is as stupid does”?
Wait, what? BRAVE? And they’re doing it, too? Her fans are spreading their germs all over, and call it BRAVE?!
Where is my “How to Even” book? I can’t, without it.
This is what happens when we celebrate idiotic, bratty behavior from average, bratty celebs. Sorry but it seems that today’s celebrities don’t have class and often do these kinds of behaviors without repercussions.
I don’t get what is so “brave” about spreading your germs on foodstuffs that is being sold to the public.
The whole blaming on fat kids is because fat people are a very easy scapegoat for just about anything that is wrong in society and that is pretty dangerous thinking.
She is a disgusting example of humanity at its worst. She’s lucky not to have been arrested for that. She might still find herself in legal trouble if one of the other customers who bought doughnuts at that shop decides to sue her for contaminating their food. I hope some one does just that. Would serve her right to get hit in the pocketbook for some major $$$$. Might even knock some sense into her, since she lacks it to start with and all the bad publicity she received over the incident only has her whining Waah Peeps Are Meeeeeeeaaaaan! And Fat People Made Me Do It So There!
It seems that for some, the only thing they understand is $$$$, or getting dinged.
She licked donuts, probably spreading diseases and germs to unsuspecting people, but I’m the unhealthy one because I keep my donut eating hands to myself!?!? I can’t even ….
Yeah, it boggles the mind how our fat made her lick donuts. *rolls eyes*
I know why it’s relevant that her friend was the one buying the doughnuts. It’s because she’s too good and perfect to buy the horrible, toxic things (but apparently not too good to create a public health hazard), she was just keeping her friend company.
I had not heard about this. Who in the world licks produce on a donut display? A dirty, unhygienic person, that is who. Reading your post I got the impression that she still didn’t really apologise properly, is that right? She seems to have kinda apologised for saying she hated Americans, but then closely followed that with some serious fat-shaming, then said she didn’t get the chance to apologise properly, but didn’t actually then apologise?
Just apologise for being a dirty person who contaminates others food already!
Exactly. Apologize to the world for being unhygienic. Apologize to the people who bought the donuts she licked. Apologize to the shop owner, who is paying the price for her irresponsible actions.
My Dad bought home these delish fresh cinnamon donuts yesterday and I haven’t had them in ages. I usually adore them, but couldn’t face them yesterday. For the time being I must say that the donut licking has turned me off them a bit 🙂
I understand that. 🙂
Today, my Mom asked if I wanted to buy some donuts (we were at a convenience store, and they were there, looking all delicious), and I said that I’ve gone off donuts since the Ariana Grande thing, ESPECIALLY since her fans have taken up the “brave” act, as well. It will blow over in a few months, I’m sure, but in the meantime, I just don’t feel safe eating them.
And I feel sorry for the donut-bakers out there, whose livelihoods are taking a hit because of it.
Shame on her, and even more shame on the fans who think this is a good idea and an act to emulate.