Model Tess Holliday claims she was denied life insurance for weighing ‘over 300 pounds’
Model Tess Holliday on Wednesday claimed she was denied life insurance coverage because of her weight.
“I’m sorry. Yes, I did think that I could get life insurance as a 40-year-old, non-smoking, non-drinking, non-health issue having human. That was honestly my bad,” she said sarcastically in a TikTok video.
“Am I 5-foot-3, and do I weigh over 300 pounds,” she continued. “And, apparently, that makes me ineligible for life insurance. Yeah, it does.”
She added that she works out every day, has no preexisting conditions and doesn’t take any medications.
The plus-size model called the “medical industrial complex” “fatphobic,” claiming the “system is broken.”
“That’s my bad, and that’s on me,” she added sarcastically. “And, honestly, it won’t happen again. Lesson learned.”
In the caption of her post, she wrote “AAA you did me dirty man,” adding to a commenter that she was “shook” over the incident.
Fox News Digital has reached out to AAA for comment.
Last week, Holliday posed in a green bikini with the word “fat” on it and a caption in her video that said, “POV: you lost weight but never made it your personality.”
She added in a separate caption to the video, “Imagine calling self-acceptance toxic. Couldn’t be me.”
Holliday said she had brought back the “#effyourbeautystandards” movement she started “because this message still matters. 13 years after I created the movement, we still need the reminder,” she wrote. “Maybe now more than ever.”
Last fall, the model said she was left in a “state of shock” after a flight attendant suggested she lose weight.
The 40-year-old said she was flying first class on United from Tampa, Florida, with her 9-year-old son when she got up to use the airplane bathroom.
“I was in the restroom, and my hip hit the flight attendant call button,” she told People magazine. “When I came out of the bathroom, the flight attendant then started to tell me that they noticed I was traveling with my child and that losing weight would be in my best interest.”
She said he continued to tell her about his sister, whom he said was “very, very large, probably [Holliday’s] size,” who had been discriminated against on a flight recently.
“He said that his sister needed to lose weight as well and that the long-term effect on our bodies isn’t good for our health,” she said. “This went on for about 10 minutes, and I think I was just frozen. I didn’t want to make a scene because my son was flying with me, but I was also in a state of shock.”
She said in the video that the flight attendant mentioned that someone had filed a complaint to United against his sister for her weight and that United reached out to him and said things about his sister that “made him uncomfortable,” but he did “agree that she did need to lose weight.”
“He then goes on to tell me that because of my size, I am kidding myself if I think that I don’t need to lose weight,” she claimed.
Holliday said she knows people hearing her story might think he was just trying to be helpful.
“That’s not the point,” she stressed. “You don’t say things like that to people. He said a myriad of other things. The conversation lasted entirely too long. Thankfully, I excused myself from the conversation when another passenger came up to use the bathroom.”
In a comment after the video, Holliday said that she had “talked to United, and they said that they would pass it along and talk to the team member. I also told them I don’t want anyone losing their job. I just want them to be aware and maybe do some sensitivity training so it doesn’t happen again.”
