Shakira is revealing that she took matters into her own hands over her “too skinny” Zootopia character.
Speaking to People in a new interview, Shakira admitted that she took it upon herself to add a little meat to the character she’s lending her voice to in the new animated film Zootopia . She felt her animated alter ego, a sassy gazelle named Gazelle, was “too skinny.”
“The one thing they took as a suggestion was that she was a little too skinny for me,” Shakira told People of her Zootopia character this week.
Shakira also requested that Disney beef up Gazelle’s hips and thighs, which now better resemble Shakira’s extremely healthy body.
“I asked them to give her a little… to give her bigger hips,” Shakira admitted to People in the new interview, “And I said to the Zootopia director, ‘Come on, guys, give her some meat!’ And they did.”
People also revealed that Disney’s animators altered the character’s facial features to make her look a little more like Shakira, which included the animated character’s eyelashes and hair being altered to match Shakira’s iconic uber-glamorous look.
But despite the changes, Shakira also revealed in the interview that she was on board from the word go to star in the Disney film, which marks Shakira’s first venture onto the big screen.
“They decided to tell me about Gazelle and what she was like and her personality, the things that she stood for,” Shakira said to People , admitting that she identified with Gazelle from the very beginning of the movie process. “I just felt that I needed identification with it, and I said to them, ‘Listen, this is me. Gazelle is me,” Shakira said, joking that the told Disney, “‘I’m in. You can hire me now if you want!’”
Shakira’s confession that she requested her Zootopia character be a little more voluptuous comes six years after Shakira admitted that she began undergoing therapy as early as 2001 to help her love her body.
Speaking to Fabulous magazine in 2010, Shakira revealed that she struggled with body image when she was younger and even used to wish that her stunning curves and enviable figure were a little more scaled down.
“I wished I was taller, had longer legs, slimmer hips, a smaller bottom, even straighter hair,” Shakira said at the time, “I am just like all women – we’re born to criticise ourselves.”
Shakira then made the surprising admission that she turned to therapy to help her overcome her body issues and even continues to speak out her problems today.
“Therapy has helped me so much in every aspect of my life from body image to relationships,” Shakira said. “It’s about understanding myself – sometimes I’ll speak to my therapist for an hour a day, it has become my routine.”
And it sounds — and looks — like therapy is certainly working for Shakira.
“I’ve become so much more comfortable with who I am and the body God has given me,” Shakira concluded in the 2010 interview.
Shakira also opened up about her body in a more recent interview with Glamour , where she admitted that her boyfriend, Gerard Piqué, “prefers meat over bone,” which helps to prevent her from feeling as though she needs to be incredibly trim to feel beautiful.
“My man, Gerard, prefers meat over bone. He doesn’t like too skinny,” Shakira admitted to Glamour in 2014, where she confessed that Piqué’s love of her bootylicious body “takes pressure off” Shakira’s workout routine since the star became a mom to her two sons, Milan, 3 and Sasha, 1.
Watch the trailer for Disney’s Zootopia , featuring Shakira as Gazelle, below.
What do you think about Shakira’s Zootopia claims and body image confessions?
[Photo by Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images for Disney]
