Singer Tanerélle Stephens stepped out in a plunging dress for the Black Entertainment Awards this week and she looked truly BANGING. It was a total lewk, with a bold black and gold pattern, a snug-fitting bottom and an almost cape-like flourish at the back.
It seems pretty obvious to us, looking at this dress, that a bra should probably not be worn. Tanerélle agreed, and graced that red carpet bra-less.
Unfortunately, trolls attacked Tanerélle for her decision not to wear a bra or use tape to keep her breasts in place. We powerfully roll our eyes.
Tanerélle was having none of it, though. She gloriously hit back at the haters on just about every social media platform.
“To all the negative comments about today’s look, I don’t need to lift my breast to wear a f*****g dress,” she wrote on Twitter. “I’m a woman and my natural t**s hang and I f*****g love it and I have no intention of changing it to suit your gaze. I’m out here living my dreams focus on better things.”
Out here! Living her dreams! Focusing on better things! As she absolutely should be.
She shared this video on Twitter, too.
And she posted an incredible mini essay on Instagram – and we are absolutely here for it.
“According to some I missed a critical step yesterday when getting ready,” she said.
“What they don’t know is I literally had a fat ass piece of tape stuck from the bottom of my left boob to the top of my shoulder, looked at it & made a conscious decision to take it off because I actually loved the way my natural breasts looked in comparison to the “perfect” option….last time I checked what I thought about how I look was all that mattered, so I’m gonna keep going with that cause it’d be fucking impossible to please EVERYONE when it comes to ME. I can’t be everyone’s favorite and I don’t wanna be, but as long as I’m able to go home and feel yummy about myself, especially from the self hate that I’ve spent my life growing out of…I’m fucking GOOD.
“What I do care about is noticing that so many women are still stuck in a daze of self hate, people pleasing and projecting how you feel about you in an attempt to make someone feel the same. What I care about is that there are women out there still allowing the male gaze to determine their worth and what they can and can’t do. This reminder of socialized minds in regards to a woman’s body always rocks me a bit, but it’s not gonna knock me down. It just intensifies my mission of pushing self care and self love even more. You owe it to yourself to at least try to embrace the parts of you you don’t like because someone else said you shouldn’t. Your body, no matter what it looks like is doing all it can everyday to keep you alive and thriving, that to me deserves all the fucking love and care I can give, so I’m gonna.
“Cheers to the tits!!! small tits, big tits, fake tits, no tits, all tits! And cheers to being a fucking woman.”
Cheers to the tits indeed. We love watching women defend themselves like this, and we cannot wait for the day they don’t have to.
