reality tv

'I was a bit offended.' The man who made Yvie's protest against I'm a Celeb's weigh-ins about him.

 

While many viewers praised Yvie Jones’ refusal to take part in the I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here weigh-in, there was one man who couldn’t help but be “offended” by her protest.

Fellow campmate, model Justin Lacko, approached the Gogglebox star after the weigh-in, to tell her that she hadn’t been considerate of his feelings… somehow.

Yvie had earlier told the camp that she’d had an eating disorder for “most of my life”.

Watch Yvie’s powerful speech here:

Video via Channel Ten

She then criticised the annual segment, wondering why the show chooses to extend society’s focus on weight into the jungle.

“You don’t know what its like to go through life and be judged solely on the weight that you are, or the clothes that don’t fit you properly.”

“I feel like we’ve all been doing so well, and now we’re going to celebrate how much weight we’ve lost and how that’s something to be proud of. I don’t think it is something to be proud of.

“I’m going to respectfully ask that my number is taken away, and that I don’t know how much weight I’ve lost, because I don’t think it really matters.”

After her powerful speech, however, Justin wanted to tell her that she hadn’t been inclusive of him and his feelings.

“I just wanted to talk to you. My heart went out to you and I started tearing up for you but when you said ‘people who don’t have weight issues they don’t understand’ I didn’t really get that,” he told her.

ADVERTISEMENT

Yvie calmly explained her own lived experience to the 28-year-old, who has previously spoken about how he doesn’t like it when “big” people complain about their weight.

“My point was that it was not only made to be very obvious to me in my own home that I did not fit into society, it was made clear every time I stepped out of the home as well in everything I did and still to this day do.”

But the former Love Island contestant wanted Yvie to know how her expression of her own feelings had offended him.

“I was a bit offended. I’ve gone through my own experiences, I was bullied in school and I was defenceless,” he said.

“I’ve been eating my whole life and I’ve never worried about having the weight on me but I have had my problems.”

Yvie told him: “What I meant by ‘thin people don’t understand’ is that the body you have is so celebrated that you have made an entire career out of it.”

“Your body is celebrated, my body is degraded.”

“Are you 100 per cent sure of that?” he asked.

Yvie explained: “I’m going on generalisation of how I’ve been treated and how people around me have been treated… ‘you need to be skinny, skinny is good’…”

“Your problem is different to my problem, I don’t understand what you’ve gone through.”

But Justin wasn’t satisfied.

“You need to be a bit careful about how you phrase it,” he said.

Yvie told him that she had been “so careful” of her words to not offend thin people her whole life.

ADVERTISEMENT

“I’ve gotten to the point now where a little voice in the back of my head has become a very loud voice that says no more wanting to not step on some toes.

“All I’m trying to do is tell my story, so if you are personally offended by that, I can’t help that.”

But Justin wanted her to know that slim people have problems too.

“I know what it feels like to be weighed in, I have to read on social media – ‘he’s too hairy, he’s too anorexic, he’s too skinny’ – I also have issues,” he said.

“Do I leave this industry because I can’t do it, or do I change the way men are viewed?

“I am not just a model… I am an icon and I want to encourage people to be happy with whatever physique they have, to not look at a number. Numbers tell the time, they help with money management.

“‘I understand what it’s like to be judged. I have to question my worth and my being, because people say ‘you’re too skinny, you’re too muscly, you look like a muscly skeleton’.”

Yvie was not backing down though.

“I stand by what I said. I don’t think you’d ever understand what I’ve been through, and I hope you never do, because it’s awful.”

Justin, seemingly realising how aggressive he was being, just… stopped.

“Anyways it’s nice we could talk about it,” he said, as he went in for a hug. “And I just wanted to say I love you so much.”

Yvie later told the camera that she saw a moment when it looked like he was about to “explode”, but was “really proud of him” for containing himself.

00:00 / ???