Search bars conceal cruelties. In April 2023, Babe Rexha opened TikTok and found a suggested term below one of her videos: “Bebe Rexha weight.” Not written by her. None of them did. The machine only learnt that this was something people wanted to know about her. It was screen shotted. She claimed it was shit. she said, as she has for a decade. Before becoming a household name, Bleta Rexha, a Brooklyn born, Staten Island raised daughter of Albanian immigrant parents, co wrote tracks for Eminem and Selena Gomez. Before she was made famous by.
In the Name of Love and Meant to Be with Florida Georgia Line, she had already been under years of industry pressure regarding her body. Early in her career, she was told to lose 20 pounds, think about getting a liposuction and have management check what she ate before video shoots. She weighed around 127 pounds. It stayed with her: Nobody likes a bloated pop star. To hear that, it’s hard not to remark how little the instincts of the music industry have changed, despite the fast shift in body positive rhetoric.
| Full Name | Bleta Rexha |
| Born | August 30, 1989, Brooklyn, New York |
| Nationality | American, of Albanian descent |
| Profession | Singer, Songwriter |
| Known For | “Meant to Be,” “I’m Good (Blue),” “In the Name of Love” |
| Health Condition | Polycystic Ovary Syndrome, PCOS |
| Medication | Metformin, for insulin resistance linked to PCOS |
| Labels | Warner Records |
| Active Since | 2009 |
The medical element, which took place in spring 2023, sets Bebe Rexha’s weight gain story apart from the usual celebrity body image cycle. Rexha told The Jennifer Hudson Show in May that she saw a doctor for the first time the year before and was diagnosed with polycystic ovarian syndrome. PCOS affects 1 in 10 women of reproductive age, many of whom are unaware. There are a number of symptoms such as irregular periods, acne, excessive hair growth and issues getting pregnant but weight gain is the least understood. Gaining weight even when you try your hardest to shed weight.
This is due to the insulin resistance that many women with PCOS experience. The body produces more insulin because it no longer responds to it. High insulin levels lead to fat storage, particularly around the midsection, and make fat burning very hard.”.You may have a lady with PCOS registering a dish of blueberries like a pizza,” Rekha’s doctor stated. That’s not a lack of will strength. A metabolic fact . She believes it was the only thing that really regulated her period. She described a fourteen hundred calorie diet and workouts burning up to seven hundred calories, which her doctor deemed unsustainable, in addition to medicines.
Rexha’s perhaps most important act has been to refuse to tidy up the conversation. . Her audience appeared to sense that to pretend otherwise would have felt false. That 2021 lingerie TikTok normalizing a weight of 165 pounds was unscripted, yet it still received tens of millions of views.
The cultural apparatus around women in entertainment has worked all along.” Rexha’s performance at the 2024 American Music Awards drew even more scathing commentary. Trolls suggested she use Ozempic, a GLP 1 weight loss drug that has become an icon of public revulsion. She responded with humor and, by most accounts, real calm, not the put on kind that falls apart in a subsequent post. In February 2025, a spectator of a Dubai Instagram Live harshly compared her to other celebrities. She read the comment out loud shrugged and responded who cares. She added that she had channeled her experiences into new music and felt stronger than ever. To see this moment unfold is to see a verbal and behavioral metamorphosis.
She has been defeated by physical health. A cyst burst, causing such anguish her doctor suspected appendicitis. She went to urgent care. The general interest is in the weight, which means the episode gets less attention. Ovarian cysts nasty burst. Acute medical emergency. It’s presence in a story about appearance says something about the framing.
Rexha’s practical counterargument behind it all: The idea that gaining weight publicly is a disciplinary failure. She found an illness that millions of women suffer in silence, since doctors miss it and culture doesn’t talk about it. She’s taken medication, questioned extreme dieting and admitted the limits of willpower vs hormones. She released music after announcing herself in her”.fat era” unapologetically. You might see her name, weight, in the search bar. She seems to have decided that’s not the whole story.
i) https://www.lifeandstylemag.com/posts/bebe-rexha-on-30-pound-weight-gain-from-pcos-diagnosis/
ii) https://www.cosmopolitan.com/uk/body/health/a43627893/bebe-rexha-responds-weight-gain-trending-tiktok/
iii) https://www.today.com/health/womens-health/bebe-rexha-weight-gain-pcos-diagnosis-rcna86220
iv) https://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/entertainment/entertainment-news/bebe-rexha-addresses-upsetting-interest-in-her-weight-gain/3547607/