Entertainment

Fat TV Anchor is a bully herself

Jennifer Livingston, the overweight TV anchor who accused a male viewer — on air — of bullying her because he’d emailed her suggesting that she should lose weight, is the real bully.

Livingston has been all over national TV like a runaway Kardashian this week talking about how this man’s email was a terrible, hurtful form of bullying.

Sorry, but I don’t buy it.

Bullying implies power over those helpless to defend themselves.

Since when is a news anchor helpless? Hardly.

I think she was just using the current most popular catch-phrase — bullying — to be a bully herself.

Look, she’s right for calling out the guy and saying that women on TV should be all shapes and sizes.

But she lost me when she took advantage of the catch-phrase of the moment. I say bull crap to the bullying accusation.

Livingston’s got her own bully pulpit and proved it.

Her on-air rant went viral and the blood-lust that followed, particularly by female reporters, was crazy — especially after the guy, Kenneth Krause, was outed yesertday by a local weekly and then by CNN.

Krause is now the one whose phone is disconnected and being hounded by media because of a private, well-thought-out, not-mean e-mail.

Livingston should try working at a New York tabloid where we — male and female reporters alike — get emails so filled with personal attacks, we should wear body armor before logging in in the morning.

Last week, men emailed to say I was jealous of, let’s see, oh yes, Britney Spears, the Kardashians and the “Real Housewives” because I am a “sad,” “lonely,” “fat-legged whore” with “a mole on my chin.”

Krause’s email on the other hand, was a well-written personal note from an in-shape guy who has a perfect right to express a private opinion to a public person.

Look, nobody’s more shocked than I am to be on this side and defending the “bully.”

For one thing I abhor the current fashion of snubbing middle-aged or plump female reporters with decades of experience in favor of 22-year-old beauty queens who look like space aliens.

And that was the weirdest and most ironic aspect of yesterday’s media frenzy— the female anchors interviewing Livingston looked like they’d just ripped the beauty queen ribbons off their ample chests.

What if I write an email saying these beauties are a bad example because no female in real life is 6 feet tall with a 40” bust and an 18” waistline? Would that be bullying?

I guess so, and I’m probably a bully too for not joining them and immediately jumping aboard on the “you go girl” school of bonding.

But I’d rather stick to the truth than to stick it to a guy for expressing himself. Even if he is a whore with a mole on his chin.