TV & Movies
Matt James Slams His Friend For Body-Shaming Victoria Larson
"That's not my character and that's not what I'm about."
Matt James is making amends with the "Queen." After a video surfaced online of the Bachelor's friend body-shaming Victoria Larson during a round of golf, Matt apologized in a Jan. 28 interview on The Real. In response to the clip, which shows his friend Jerry attempting to distract him from his putt by putting Victoria down, Matt said that he doesn't "condone or stand for" bullying of any kind.
"Now how was Victoria's body? Cause when I look at her, it doesn't look very nice," Jerry says in the clip, which was shared by @bachelornation.scoop on Instagram. "And you've been making out with this woman." Though Matt didn't respond in the video, he addressed his friend's comments when prompted by host Jeannie Mai. "It's just a constant reminder that you need to be smart about the people you surround yourself with," he said.
The Bachelor continued, "And those moments when you're in sports and people are trying to say things to you to throw things off your game, it's sad that someone would think saying something like that about a woman that I was dating would deter me from what I was trying to do." He also revealed that he reprimanded Jerry in person, even though it wasn't captured in the footage.
"I said something to him off-camera about it. Something along the lines of, 'Victoria wouldn't have given him a second look,'" he said. "It's always the pot calling the kettle black. Who is he to comment on someone's body? It's such a low blow for any man to try and take a dig at something like that."
Matt also apologized to Victoria on his friend's behalf, admitting that Jerry likely wouldn't do it himself. "That's not my character and that's not what I'm about," he added. "It's a shame that that's even associated with what was going on." While Victoria has not responded to Matt's apology, the controversial contestant did slam his friend shortly after the clip first surfaced.
"Cute... I love my body :)" she commented on the @bachelornation.scoops post before seemingly responding to Jerry on her own Instagram page. After sharing a meme of a man criticizing beauty pageant contestants from his couch, Victoria posted a pair of photos of her in a bikini from a trip to the beach. "Tell me again how my body doesn't look so good?" she captioned the post. However, she has since changed the caption to promote her preferred pilates studios. "Y'all r too much," the new caption reads.
In the weeks since his season premiered, Matt has frequently defended Victoria, who almost instantly established herself as one of the most controversial Bachelor contestants of all time. "Victoria is hilarious. She is one of the wittiest people I've ever met," he told Becca Kufrin and Rachel Lindsay during an interview on the Bachelor Happy Hour podcast. "She's unapologetically herself. She's the quickest. You'll say something, and she's got something, and then she's out. I'm like, 'What? What did you just say?'"
