Beth Ditto misunderstands Missy

Every time the Beth Ditto phone rings, we find out buttocks clenching - what's she going to say now?

Now, it turns out, she's keen to have a go at Missy Elliot for losing weight, and setting a bad example.

Now, there are probably hundreds of celebrities who have lost weight they didn't need to use, promoting a terrible body image, and feeding eating disorders in young men and women. Why choose Missy - who has at least settled on a sensible weight - rather than, say, Amy Winehouse or Kate Moss, Beth?

Oh. Yes, we forgot, it's impossible for your showbiz chums to set a bad example.

So, until Missy pals up with Beth, she's going to have to take this:

"She lost weight! For health. Well it wasn't like she was gonna fall over dead! "

Erm... yes, yes it was, actually, Beth. She was warned that her body shape had raised her blood pressure to a dangerous level where she was at risk from a stroke. While nobody should be forced to conform to body shape to please other people, it's as dangerous to pretend there's no risk in obesity as it is to, say, suggest that anorexia is a lifestyle choice.

But I can understand why it would be so fucking hard for her to be her size (success-wise) and her weight

But it wasn't a problem - she'd already achieved her first success before the weight-loss and was certainly in a position to choose projects.

Having had a go at Missy, Beth then patronises her:

"I never, ever blame the woman in the position for feeling like she needs to change herself; I blame people who are in power and prevent them for doing what they love to do or what they're fucking amazing at, like Missy Elliott, because of the way they look. It's a fucking joke."

Leaving aside the successful albums, the production and mentoring roles, the guest appearances on other artists' records, which predated the weight loss, would Ditto really look Elliott in the face and tell her that she's a poodle of the music industry bosses, that she had no choice but to lose weight because someone in an office told her too? Beth Ditto, do you really believe Elliott is so weak? Do you really believe you're the only person in the music industry capable of making their own choices?

Elliott told Now that she never was put under pressure to slim by the label:

Being in the music industry, which is incredibly image-driven, had you ever felt under pressure to lose weight before?
No, I was lucky. I'd always been happy with my size and the record label never asked me to lose weight.

They saw me as bringing something different to the table and being unique in my own way. I even used to poke fun at my size, which is why I wore an inflatable PVC suit for the video of The Rain.

It's an interesting aspect of Ditto's professed belief in people being free to follow their own way that she can't accept that someone might choose weightloss over diabetes, and feels free to suggest they're incapable of making their own mind up on the issue.