She has faced her fair share of body-shaming in recent years, and shut each insult down with expert ease. So, there is no celebrity better qualified than singer Pink, to give a speech about beauty standards.

 

This is exactly what she did at last night’s MTV VMAs, and it was nothing short of powerful and inspirational.

 

The mum-of-two, who attended the show to accept the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award, hit the red carpet with husband Carey Hart and their eldest child, Willow. They dressed in uniform, wearing matching pinstripe suits.

 

When Pink hit the stage, she explained the significance of their matching, androgynous outfits: to shut down harmful beauty standards.

 

Setting the scene, Pink recalled a jarring conversation with six-year-old Willow.

 

 

“She said to me, out of the blue, ‘Mama, I’m the ugliest girl I know.’ And I said, ‘Huh?’ And she was like, ‘Yeah, I look like a boy with long hair’,” she explained.

 

The exchange was so disturbing to Pink, real name Alecia Moore, that she went home and prepared a PowerPoint presentation of ‘androgynous rock stars, and artists that live their truth and probably were made fun of every day of their lives, and carry on and wave their flag and inspire the rest of us’.

 

She then shared the most powerful logic for her daughter, in a way that only Pink could do, going on to recall the next part of their exchange.

 

“People say that I look like a boy, or I’m too masculine; I have too many opinions, my body is too strong.

 

“I said to her, ‘Do you see me growing my hair?’ She said, ‘No, Mama.’

 

 

A post shared by P!NK (@pink) on

 

“I said, ‘Do you see me changing my body?’ [She said] ‘No, Mama’.

 

“‘Do you see me changing the way I present myself to the world?’ [She said] ‘No, Mama.’

 

“‘Do you see me selling out arenas all over the world?’ [She said] ‘Yes, Mama.’”

 

And so, for Pink and her daughter – and for so many other little girls and boys out there – the message is this: don’t change.

 

 

 

 

“We take the gravel and the shell, and we make a pearl,” said the 37-year-old.

 

“And we help other people to change so they can see more kinds of beauty…and you, my darling, are beautiful.”

 

Twitter erupted with messages of praise and love for Pink, who has well and truly cemented her legendary status.

 

Well done to Pink, for setting such an amazing example for our little ones.

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