Who Faked The Christina Aguilera “I’m A Fat Girl” Quotes Falsely Attributed To Billboard?
October 5, 2012 by Hollywoodite
Earlier this week, quotes circulated everywhere from Us Weekly Magazine to The Hollywood Reporter to RadarOnline.com republished in good faith as being said by Christina Aguilera to Billboard Magazine.
Here’s the fake quote: “I got tired of being a skinny, white girl. I am Ecuadorian but people felt so safe passing me off as a skinny, blue-eyed white girl… [My record label] called this serious emergency meeting about how there was a lot of backlash about my weight. Basically, they told me I would effect a lot of people if I gained weight; the production, musical directors… I told them ‘You are working with a fat girl. Know it now and get over it.’ They need a reminder sometimes that I don’t belong to them. It’s my body. My body can’t put anyone in jeopardy of not making money anymore; my body is just not on the table that way anymore.”
Aguilera did give an interview with Billboard, for whom she’s on the latest cover. However, it became apparent when Billboard released its article online, the “fat girl” quotes were nowhere to be found.
Sometimes online editions only release partial interviews, to compel people to purchase the print editions from newsstands. However, this Billboard interview spanned two pages online and it appeared to be a complete work. And a skim-read revealed the quotes were missing. Because they were never said to or published by Billboard. The quotes were fakes and falsely attributed to Billboard by a hoaxer.
So, how did fake quotes spread so pervasively and to whom can the hoax be attributed?
According to the New Zealand Herald, Entertainment Weekly “traced the fabricated comments back to a reblogged Tumblr post.”
Aguilera’s rep told Access Hollywood of the quotes: “The quotes are 100 per cent false. She never said them to Billboard and Billboard never printed or posted them. They are fake.”
“She never said them,” the rep told Entertainment Weekly.
Here’s the Billboard Magazine cover, the single cover for Your Body, and the album cover for Lotus shared on Twitter only moments ago.
