Jameela Jamil Isn’t Perfect, So She’s Giving Grace to ‘Problematic’ Brands

Trigger Warning: This article contains references to eating disorders

In 2018, Jameela Jamil opened Instagram and clicked the “search” icon button. It led her to the “Discovery” tab, where up popped an image carousel showcasing famous women with numbers written across their body.

The figures detailed each woman’s weight and measurements. After interacting with that single post, Jamil was “bombarded” with imagery glamorizing diet and weight loss.

“Never click that button,” she cautioned. Yet, if she hadn’t done so and posted about her experience soon after, she might not be sitting behind the podcast mic now on I Weigh, interviewing the likes of Busy Philipps and Jillian Mercado about mental health, body image and smashing societal norms.

Like all activism, [I Weigh] was born from rage and hope

—Jameela Jamil, Founder, I Weigh

“This movement started with a Tweet,” she told Adweek, “now it’s morphed into a brand, a community and a podcast. When we built ‘I Weigh’, we wanted our tagline to be that we want to make women feel smarter and happier, not thinner and younger.”

“Like all activism, it was born from rage and hope,” she said, speaking fresh from Cannes Lions in June, where she had been addressing marketers.

When Jamil sent “I Weigh” out into the world, she initially called out advertisers for turning body positivity into a “marketing slogan.”

Many of the world’s biggest brands, including Disney and Nike, are fully aware of that critique and have doubled down on body-positivity messaging. It’s the entire mission of Dove’s “Self Esteem Project,” which has resulted in campaigns including “The Reverse Selfie” and reached 95 million young girls with the mission addressing what the Unilever-owned advertiser calls “a public health crisis.”

Jamil wants to see the world’s biggest advertisers celebrating all bodies and doing more to make women, and men, feel comfortable in their own skin. She also has a message from CMOs looking to collaborate with platforms like her own: you don’t have to be perfect, but you have to be actively seeking change.

A reciprocal audience relationship

Jamil might be best known in the U.S. for her role as the exuberantly upper-crust Tahani in NBC’s The Good Place and She-Hulk: Attorney at Law. She’s also about to add a role in Pixar’s upcoming film, Elio. Her new podcast, “Bad Dates,” sees her talk to comedians, celebrities and friends about their romantic experiences and misfires.

Now a multihyphenate creator, she’s spent the last few years building her “I Weigh” platform, first as a social community where people share their worth through their accomplishments, beyond the sum of their flesh and bones in kilograms. This has since morphed into the podcast and content platform.

“It’s ridiculous this is called a job. I have a guilt hangover about the fact I get to do this, so I try and use it for as much good as possible,” she said. “Everyone keeps asking me what I’m going to do next, but I don’t know. That’s always been my magic; I just like willfully throwing myself into things.”

I Weigh’s original Instagram account now counts 1.4 million followers. Recent I Weigh episodes have included a one-to-one about male sexualization with Gossip Girl’s Penn Badgley and a chat with Greta Thunberg about the inequalities of the climate crisis.

She puts the series’ success down to being in a “reciprocal cycle” with her audience. “I get feedback and letters every week from listeners about what an episode meant to them or telling me what I need to discuss next or what I left out,” she said. The podcast has attracted advertisers including Subway and Sky Sports.

“We’re not about liberal punishment or creating a punitive culture, we fight for the liberation of everyone with love and compassion,” she said.

I’ve given myself space to change and I feel the same way about brands

—Jameela Jamil, founder, I Weigh

Though the bulk of her audience is women, the brands she’s interested in collaborating with moving forward are ones that “mostly get advertised on men’s podcasts;” spots promoting technology and food or products that aid women’s physical performance.

“I don’t want to sell diet products that tell women to stop eating. I don’t want to be yet another reminder that women need to restrict and show their discipline via what their bodies look like,” she said.

Progress, not perfectionism

As an influencer herself, with more than 3.7 million followers, Jamil has a hard rule against working with any brand promoting a diet or weight loss product. Previous collaborations have included Tommy Hilfiger and lingerie and activewear brand Aerie.

Through I Weigh she was involved in petitioning and pushing Meta’s 2019 decision to stop allowing weight-loss brands to promote content to anyone under 18 on Instagram.

However, in the midst of the culture wars and the era of the social media takedown, she’s also not completely closed off to advertisers that are slightly “problematic,” so long as they want to move forward with feedback from her and the I Weigh community.

“We’re not here to work with brands that are perfect. I want to work with ones that need a bit of guidance and support. No one is beyond redemption, I’ve been a problematic asshole before but I’ve given myself space to change and I feel the same way about brands.”

An obvious first place to start, she said, is to stop photoshopping imagery to make women thinner and smoother.

“Start with your images, stop using one kind of body. Include the communities that actually spend money on your products; make clothes that are big enough so you can access the plus-size pound; market yourself to people with disabilities so you can access the purple pound; have venues that are accessible for everyone. If you’re wondering why disabled customers don’t like you it’s because they can’t get in the fucking building.”

She also wants to see fashion and luxury brands use age-appropriate models to target woman over 30.

“As I’m getting older, I have more money to spend and I’m seeing less and less products that feel like they were designed for me,” she said, observing that most of the models in high-end designer campaigns and editorials were in their teens and early 20s.

“What 14-year-old can afford a Prada jacket?” she asked, “it makes women feel actively rejected.”

As an advocate for feminist empowerment and a queer woman of color, Jamil has been open about her own body image and mental health journey which has included an eating disorder, experience with disability and being “body shamed” by British press after gaining weight following a steroid treatment for asthma.

Alongside this, she’s been on a very public journey, clocking up countless column inches along the way.

Since Adweek sat down with Jamil, she’s encountered a social media backlash for posting a series of love heart emojis under an Instagram post from Lizzo, in which the latter denied allegations from dancers regarding sexual harassment and working conditions.

In her own statement, Jamil said she was not jumping to conclusions about what happened, but instead showing support to the musician for being “ripped to shreds” over her appearance among the press coverage.

Prior to that she faced criticism from corners of the body positivity community who accused her of being disingenuous in her activism and dealt with a backlash over her appointment as a judge on Legendary, a TV competition inspired by LGBT ballroom culture.

More recently, she shut down reports she was “feuding” with The Last of Us star Bella Ramsey of gendered entertainment awards categories, following an Instagram post from Jamil posing a question about the potential for a separate non-binary category.

Answering how she dealt with the double-edged sword that is social media, she said: “Most people tell me my honesty and being honest about my own growth has inspired them. People feel like you’re either perfect or you shouldn’t participate at all.”

“As long as I can change the narrative for people that do pay attention to me, that’s what makes me happy.”