A snipped from NYMag caught my eye today. The headline read “Call Crystal Renn fat, and she’ll eat your tacos.”

Aside from the catch-your-eye wording, I was beyond curious as to what this actually meant. As we know, Crystal Renn is a plus-sized model who recently released her book, Hungry: A Young Model’s Story of Appetite, Ambition and the Ultimate Embrace of Curves (about the experience of being a ‘plus sized’ model in a size 0 world), so the thought of someone calling her fat, and then her eating tacos after? Well, intriguing, to say the least.

Here’s the story:

Before she became a plus-size model, Crystal Renn [sic] was sent home from a catalogue shoot in Chicago because she was “too fat.” She recalls: “I have to say that I don’t run into many people who are capable of such disgusting behavior, but this particular person was one of them. I had just turned 17 at the time. After the client told me, ‘You’re fat,’ I went and ate all the tacos and all the meat at the catering table and was like, ‘Thanks for the food,’ and walked out.”

While it’s certainly not the most “appropriate” or “elegant” way to handle such an abrasive remark, I loved the fact that she didn’t break down and cry – she didn’t validate that person’s opinion by allowing them to affect her, or get victimized – she ate their motherf!@$king tacos, and left.

I view this as a positive step. Then again, creative vindication has always been a hobby of mine, and I always enjoy seeing it done well. This is one of those things that I’d wished I’d done after I already broke down crying, and moped off the set. “Man, I should have eaten all their tacos. That would have been sweet.”

So now that we’re thinking about it – what would you do?

How would you handle a situation where your professional skills (in Renn’s case – her body) were put down, brutally, at your job? What if it was body-related?

Let’s figure it out now, so we can be sure to leave these situations feeling empowered, instead of cut down.

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To contact Lindsay Ginn, the author of this post, please send a note to lindsay@thedemoiselles.com, or use our contact form.

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