Sharon Jones Quotes

I'm being mocked because I don't live up to a socially determined view of what other people think a person should look like.

When I saw Adele, I thought: 'I'll give it an hour before people say I was her,' just because I was fat. When you watch 'X Factor,' you can bet your bottom dollar, every single fat singer sounds like me as far as the judges are concerned. Can you imagine if they did that with every black artist?

I know what it's like to be a model and go to castings where some people like what they see and others look at you with distaste.

Pretty people aren't as accepted as other people. It's like, 'She's pretty and thin and she's got to have problems. She's messed up.'

I think men are allowed to be fat and bald and ugly and women aren't. And it's just not - there is no equality there.

This practice of skinny actresses donning fat suits is essentially the new and acceptable blackface in Hollywood.

I didn't like my hair and makeup one time on a photo shoot, and my publicist told me, 'You should just be happy with it - they haven't had a black girl on the cover since forever.' She's no longer my publicist.

It's ridiculous that we are in a place where we feel like we can classify and dismiss certain groups of people just because of the way they look, or we have these standards of health - like, cellulite is something you need to get rid of. No, it isn't. It's just a part of people's bodies.

When I started modeling, it was like, 'Oh, she's too dark,' and I kind of looked at them like, 'You're too daft.'

There was a solid six-month period where I was going out on castings and I was laughed out of the room because I'm much more petite than other models.

That something that I fought so hard for throughout the beginning of my career is I didn't want to pancake my skin a lighter color to fit into the... ballet. I wanted to be myself. I didn't want to have to wear makeup that made my nose look thinner.

Our internal racism is still alive. We are still putting each other down and making jokes about each other because of the color of our skin. With women particularly, it's difficult because the beauty business says, 'If you don't look a certain way, God made a mistake.'

Is television a lookist industry? Of course it is.

The first entry into modeling doesn't build your confidence. They pull out the tape measure and pick you apart. I'm a curvy woman, so I was definitely told I was 'too curvy.'

All fat women look the same; they all look 42.

I was known for being talented, but I was still the fat girl. And it wasn't what people were looking for. There's a lot that you hear. There's a lot of cruelty out there. Some of it comes from the executive offices. It comes from other artists at times. It was a very difficult thing to overcome.

Our idea of a healthy body is so destabilised that insecure people have come to bolster their own bodies by deeming others - those with fat bodies - less worthy, less capable and less employable.

You're not ethnic enough. You're not fat enough. You're not thin enough. You're not blond enough. You're not dark enough. You're not young enough. You're not old enough.

Hollywood hasn't changed. It is the most racist, anti-Indian institution in the world.

I think Hispanic women are beautiful with their curves. I'm not sure who feels that way in Hollywood. I was never told to lose 50 pounds. If they think that they just don't bother with you. You just don't get the role and you never know why. That's still better than physically harming yourself and becoming unhealthy just to star in a movie.

I got to L.A., and they said I had to lose weight, let my hair grow and buy some dresses. I was nailing auditions with my readings, but they wouldn't hire me because I wasn't putting on the glam. It just didn't occur to me.

There just are not a lot of overweight people in Hollywood.

For a while, I was only being sent fat-girl parts. Seriously? Sometimes I feel like I'm making some kind of radical statement because I'm a size 6.

When I try to get work in the US all they say is that I need to lose weight - but I bet they never said that to Mae West.

People make such a big deal about how people in bands look, especially if you're a girl.