Rosie Waterland responds to critics of yesterday's viral nude photo.

Yesterday, Rosie Waterland posted a naked picture of herself on the internet. With that image, she wrote a powerful post about why she felt the need to bare everything. You can read that remarkable post here.

The image ruffled a few feathers, so Rosie has responded to the reaction in her signature style.

Rosie writes…

Why write about how important it is not to focus on physical appearance, and then attach a naked photo of yourself?

Good question hahahaha.

So… This whole nudie pic thing became a much bigger deal than what I anticipated! Your reaction has been overwhelming and lovely. I will say this though:

I get that it may seem counterintuitive to post a status about how appearance shouldn’t matter, and then attach a naked photo of myself. I get that. I thought a lot about that before I posted it actually. I mean, if the physical really doesn’t matter and I don’t want it to be an issue, why did I put up a photo that very clearly made it an issue? Well, I had a message to get across I guess, and being a bigger woman, I felt like I was in a somewhat unique position to do so visually.

I have been seeing so many women, much thinner than me, constantly talking about how they’ve achieved things in life in spite of their flaws. The thing that bothers me about that discourse, is that ‘flaws’ are even being talked about at all, and so damn often. Why is the physical always so important? So high on the agenda? There just seems to be this overarching attitude that the physical should always be top on the list of values and priorities and attention.
That’s why I posted the status and photo.

2015 was a huge year for Rosie Waterland (post continues after video):

I highlighted my flaws to show how frustrated I am that we even obsess about flaws to begin with! A little counterintuitive, yes, but I just wanted to say, “Look. I’m not a thin woman. In fact, I have a body that a lot of women would consider their worst nightmare. I know there are things about me that are not conventionally attractive, but I’m happy with myself because my appearance isn’t what I value most about myself. So take a look at me. Take a look at this photo. Take a look at my ‘flawed’, chubby body, and know that if I can get on with life not constantly obsessing over my looks, then you can too.”

Laters 2015. Thanks for letting me become a published author in you. Just a lifelong dream come true that I’ll cherish forever. No biggie. Now I’m going to cheat on you with 2016, and I plan on taking things NEK FUCKING LEVEL while in that one. Stratospheric ass-kicking of life is on the agenda.

A photo posted by Rosie Waterland (@rosiewaterland) on Dec 31, 2015 at 12:58am PST

That’s why I refused all media requests today.

Because I really do believe that we should not be obsessing over appearance, so I didn’t want to feed that obsession by talking more about it. I just wanted to put the post up, vent my frustration and sadness at physical appearance being such an issue for so many women, and then go back to not letting physical appearance be an issue for me. I didn’t want to go on a bunch of chat shows to talk about it, because the whole point of my post is that I think people need to stop talking so much about it. There is so much more to each of us than our looks. I have reached a place in my life where understanding that has made me a lot happier as a person, and I would love to see other women reach that place too. I thought and hoped maybe a photo of me could help some women get there. I’m willing to let my appearance be a talking point for a couple of days, as long as the talking point is, “Actually, yeah – why are we so freaking obsessed with appearance anyway?”

I’ll leave the photo up as long as Facebook allows it, because I stand by the message and the way I chose to deliver it. But I don’t have anything else to say about my body, because my body is THE LEAST INTERESTING THING ABOUT ME! Soon, the status will be so far down my Newsfeed that it will be forgotten, and my naked body will no longer be a talking point. Which is great, because I have a one-woman show coming up that I’m working really hard on and I’d really love you all to talk about that so I can sell some more tickets lol (buy them here! http://bit.ly/1RAWFUA).

Now, I’m going to go and watch some TV and hang out with my cat. xoxoxo

You can find Rosie’ original post HERE.

If you’d like to see Rosie Waterland’s live one-woman show (and who wouldn’t) you can find tickets HERE.

And in case you missed it, Rosie wrote a book. Do yourself a favour and get your copy of The Anti Cool Girl HERE.