Loni Love sparked a major debate when she said that Black people don’t know how to eat healthy.
Love is now working with Weight Watchers, now just called WW, as an ambassador. “The Real” co-host talked about the company’s weight loss program on the show this week, sharing how she’s on what’s called The Purple Plan.
Love then talked about the program’s point system, and she had various plates of food laid out so her co-hosts could guess how many points each carries under the plan. Love said that she’s given 36 points for the day, and the goal is to remain under that number.
The conversation was kept fun and playful, but things took an abrupt, serious turn when Love spoke about growing up in Detroit’s public housing system. Her comments come around the 6:35 mark of the video.
“I did not know how to eat,” Love said as she began to cry. “Growing up in the projects, we just had to eat what we could. I know it sounds funny, but a lot of women in the African-American community, we don’t know how to eat because we grew up that way. So I’m trying to tell y’all, thank you to WW, because we wanted to do this, to help our brothers and sisters, everybody.”
She continued on from there.
“I see y’all at my comedy shows and y’all like, ‘We need to get healthier,’ and that’s the reason why we’re doing this,” Love explained. “It’s just to make y’all aware of what’s happening in the community. So you can eat and not starve and you can still lose weight.
“That’s the reason why we’re doing this,” she added. “Thank you so much to WW. Thank you to Oprah Winfrey for allowing us to do this, because we have to get healthier y’all.”
Many took Love to task on social media afterward and said they have a huge problem with her making a blanket statement about Black women and Black people in general.
“I personally think #lonilove needs to reevaluate or figure out what her voice is on the show because lately she has been saying a lot of negative things about the black community,” wrote someone on YouTube. “Is there an underlying self hate issue that needs go be addressed?”
Some also brought up “The Real” fellow co-host Amanda Seales in their comments. Seales wore a deadpan look on her face as Love talked about her childhood.
“Amanda was looking like, ‘How you putting this on Black women. Speak for yourself’ lol,” one person wrote. “Americans have an unhealthy diet by large. Every episode, Loni has a large statement about Black people. Black men can’t be faithful. Black women don’t know how to eat…like damn lol.”
“UGHHH again !!! Loni your black experience don’t represent all black women !!!” another person stated.
There was a fair share of people who agreed with Love and commented on the disparities in healthy food choices between low-income neighborhoods and other areas.
“Loni HAS HAD some anti-blackness issues but her relating her experience as a poor black child in a food desert is not one,” someone wrote. “Think abt why yall couldn’t manage an ounce of sympathy for her discussing lack of access to nutritious food&resorting to diet culture now to counteract that.”
Love saw a similar backlash when she made statements about the Black community earlier this year.
In January, she said that Black men don’t know how to carry on monogamous relationships and got blasted for it. She made the comment after Kevin Hart‘s cheating scandal was discussed in his Netflix docuseries “Kevin Hart: Don’t F–k This Up.”
