Brandy Opens Up About Her Viral Response to Body-Shaming Critics: It Was a “Teaching” Moment [Video]

What was meant to be a day of celebration turned into a day of criticism for Brandy after photos from a Mississippi event in her honor went viral for all the wrong reasons.

In the days that followed, detractors across the net weighed in on the diva’s appearance in the most unflattering manner – so much so she took to Instagram to clap back at the noise.

“Before you speak about someone’s body, before you speak about someone’s face, before you decide who they are by what you see, remember, you are looking at someone’s child. Someone’s friend. Someone’s dream. Someone’s life. A soul,” she said on the platform over the weekend.

Doubling down on the sentiment later, B-Rocka chatted it up with E! News to reiterate her plea to online critics to consider the weight of their words.

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Hot on the promo trail in support of ‘Descendants: Wicked Wonderland’ – the latest addition to Disney’s popular ‘Descendants‘ film franchise – Brandy opened up about why it was important to address the haters in such a public manner.

“There was a moment where people were really coming at me for my appearance and I didn’t love the way that made me feel. So, I just thought about how everyone feels if someone comments about their appearance or anything like that and I just took the moment and decided to share in a teaching kind of way to just encourage people and inspire people to just be gentle with each other,” she relayed before sharing, “You see someone and you don’t know what story they’re carrying, you don’t know what they’ve been through or anything like that…so just be kind and be gentle.”

Click PLAY on the clip above to hear Bran’s full statement about the matter.

‘Descendants’ hits Disney+ on July 16.