If you’re in the public eye, having a social media presence is one of those things that are unpleasant but which you cannot really avoid in 2026, like filling in a tax return or dealing with the food waste.
And if it’s even more unpleasant if you’re female and not lucky enough to be endowed with a size 10 figure. The experience of CMAT after her appearance at the Radio 1 Big Weekend in Sunderland last week was sadly not unusual – the Irish singer-songwriter copped a load of online abuse, not because of something outrageous she said or an on-stage malfunction, but simply because of her weight.
But to her credit, the artist whose acronymic moniker is short for Ciara Mary-Alice Thompson, has confronted the abuse head-on in a new Instagram post.
In a candid, but humorous missive, she said that “It is literally so boring for me, a gorgeous genius, to keep having to yap on about how horribly I am treated because of my body. I would love to stop but I cannot because it keeps happening, at an accelerating and worsening pace as I become more famous.”
“There is no relief from this - nobody can protect me or save me from this, and all that is demanded of me is more and more work as every environment I am placed in becomes more hostile.”
She pointed out that this wasn’t some sort of act of fist-waving defiance. “I am not choosing to look like this or weigh this much as some kind of punk rock act of liberty. I simply have a body, one that I would of course like to change in order to fit in and avoid all of this abuse, but I have had extreme difficulty in doing so."
“I don’t get a say in whether or not I want to be brave, I simply have to sit here and take it.”
The 30 year singer said she was self-aware enough to know that she is “very very happy and grateful” to have the job that she has, “but the success is increasingly becoming tarnished by the fact that I would be allowed to enjoy it so much more if I was thin.”
And if that last sentence doesn’t make you feel at least a little sad, then it really is time to check your pulse.
