CMAT has responded after the BBC disabled comments on the video for her performance at Big Weekend due to extensive body-shaming.
The Irish singer-songwriter took to the stage at the 2024 edition of BBC Radio 1’s Big Weekend, which was held at Stockwood Park, Luton at the end of last week.
However, footage of her set began to gather unwanted attention online, with many flocking to the post to criticise the musician about her appearance. After being up for less than a week, the BBC then decided to disable comments on the video.
Now, following the decision, Ciara Mary-Alice Thompson herself has responded to the backlash, and shared what it was like to face online abuse.
“Yesterday the BBC had to turn comments off a video of me performing at big weekend because so many people were calling me fat in the comments,” she shared on X/Twitter last night (May 29).
“Today a different video of me at the BRIT awards is going viral on south american tiktok and now people are calling me fat in spanish.”
In a follow-up post, she added: “I didnt realise it was ILLEGAL to have a HUGE ASS !!!! i am GUILTY as CHARGED it is time to lock me up and throw away THE KEY!!!!! By the way i am an award winning songwriter that has released two albums which were received to ‘universal acclaim’.”
yesterday the BBC had to turn comments off a video of me performing at big weekend because so many people were calling me fat in the comments. Today a different video of me at the BRIT awards is going viral on south american tiktok and now people are calling me fat in spanish
— cmat (@cmatbaby) May 29, 2024
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i didnt realise it was ILLEGAL to have a HUGE ASS !!!! i am GUILTY as CHARGED it is time to lock me up and throw away THE KEY!!!!! by the way i am an award winning songwriter that has released two albums which were received to ‘universal acclaim’
— cmat (@cmatbaby) May 29, 2024
This, unfortunately, is far from the first time that the broadcaster has had to amend footage of live performances online due to negative comments and online abuse.
Last summer, it was reported that the BBC had removed a clip of Billy Nomates performing at Glastonbury from social media due to the singer being subjected to trolls.
Billy Nomates – real name Tor Maries – performed on Glastonbury Festival’s Park Stage on June 23, but asked BBC 6 Music to take down footage of her online because she was receiving an “insane” amount of “personal abuse”.
“I know it’s not for everyone what I do. I know lots of people don’t rate me. But the level of personal abuse on that public page is too much,” the artist wrote in a statement. “There will be no more shows after this summer. You wouldn’t stay in a workplace that did this to you. Why should I.”
The update from CMAT also comes after the musician talked to NME at the 2024 Ivor Novellos last week, and reflected on the current dominance of Ireland in culture. This comes as many of the most in-demand names in entertainment at the moment include Irish actors such as Cillian Murphy, Paul Mescal, Saoirse Ronan and Barry Keoghan, as well as musical acts including Fontaines D.C., KNEECAP, The Mary Wallopers, Lankum, Sprints, and NewDad.
“I would say Irish culture is killing it at the moment because we are all a bit traumatised, we have a lot of generational weirdness going on, we have some post-colonial problems, we have a huge housing crisis, the government is a sack of spuds,” she told NME.
“Also we’re just really funny people who are very creative. It’s really bred into our culture that being creative, being funny, and making the best of a bad situation is the key to survival. We’ve needed to have a lot of survival instincts over the last 800 years, so I think that’s probably why.
“It’s come into fruition now, but we’ve always been brilliant. Ireland has always been ‘having a moment’, considering the size of the country. There are only like 5million of us, and one of those 5million [Cillian Murphy] just won the Best Actor Oscar this year. That’s crazy to me… We’ve always been brilliant – but there is a lot of trauma.”
Later in the red carpet chat, Thompson also hinted that new music – namely the follow-up to 2023’s ‘Crazymad, For Me’ – was on the way, and may be released sooner than fans expect.