Tieghan Gerard won’t let the critics keep her down.
During an interview with Page Six Wednesday, the Half Baked Harvest founder revealed she has learned to brush off negative comments about her slim figure.
“Why give it any energy? It is negative energy. I don’t want negative energy in my space,” she shared. “If I give [critics] any kind of comment back, that is exactly what they want.”
“By not feeding into it, you kind of make them even more mad. They’re just dying for you to give them a reaction … and I’m not going to do that,” Gerard, 30, continued.
“At the end of the day, those people, they’ve got something going on in their lives that has nothing to do with me. And I feel kind of bad that they’re sitting there on the internet bullying. So not cool.”
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Despite turning the other cheek, the foodie admitted some of the comments she gets from followers are “absolutely hurtful.”
“That stuff crushes you sometimes, especially when you see it right away,” she added. “What really gets me is when they pick apart your family and you’re just like, ‘That’s not OK.’”
However, she ensures to remind herself that she has a “core community” who loves her.
In the past, constant negative attention about Gerard’s weight has led her to deny rumors that she has an eating disorder, per her New York Times profile published in October 2023.
She also addressed the hundreds of comments she gets about her body under her Instagram posts daily, revealing the remarks have drastically impacted her mental health.
The blogger told the outlet that she suffers from separation and social anxiety, which she copes with by overworking herself.
Gerard, who started blogging in 2012 when she was 19 years old, admitted her coping mechanism had led her to often skip out on eating and sleeping.
The food prodigy noticed the hostile attention toward her increasing when she became “more forward-facing” on her Instagram, which boasts a following of 5.5 million.
“I think because I’m in food and I’m a very tiny person, I get a lot of negative comments about my weight and all these things,” she said on the “Mimi” podcast in July 2023. “And it’s just like, you don’t know me. You don’t know how I live my life.”
If you or someone you know is affected by any of the issues raised in this story, call 988 or continue to contact Crisis Text Line by texting “NEDA” to 741741.
