After Gigi Hadid walked in Jeremy Scott’s and Bottega Veneta’s shows at New York Fashion Week, people started speculating that perhaps she had a drug habit, as said body-shamers believed she looked “too skinny.” In response to the comments, Hadid took to Twitter to defend herself and discuss the autoimmune condition that has caused her weight to fluctuate: Hashimoto’s disease.
Also known as chronic lymphocytic thyroiditis, the condition causes the immune system to attack the thyroid and is the most common cause of hypothyroidism in the United States. Therefore, people who suffer from the condition often struggle with weight issues, which Hadid addressed in a Twitter thread.
“For those of you so determined to come up w why my body has changed over the years, you may not know that when I started @ 17 I was not yet diagnosed w/Hashimoto’s disease; those of u who called me ‘too big for the industry’ were seeing inflammation & water retention due to that,” she tweeted.
She continued: