He was hated for saying he loves his ‘curvy’ wife. Then more offensive tweets surfaced

The internet is a fickle beast with its favor, and once it turns on you, everything you’ve posted in the past becomes the subject of scrutiny.

That’s the lesson Robbie Tripp is now learning, after his viral post about loving his wife and her “curvy body.”

“I love this woman and her curvy body,” the post began. “As a teenager, I was often teased by my friends for my attraction to girls on the thicker side, ones who were shorter and curvier, girls that the average (basic) bro might refer to as ‘chubby’ or even ‘fat.’”

“Guys, rethink what society has told you that you should desire. A real woman is not a porn star or a bikini mannequin or a movie character. She’s real,” he continued. “She has beautiful stretch marks on her hips and cute little dimples on her booty. Girls, don’t ever fool yourself by thinking you have to fit a certain mold to be loved and appreciated.”

Robbie Tripp’s wife, Sarah Tripp, describes herself as a body confidence fashion blogger living in San Francisco, and the message was widely praised at first for being body positive.

But then the tune online quickly changed to criticism, as some questioned why a man should be praised for finding his wife attractive.

“Area Man Thinks He’s Brave for Finding His Wife Hot,” read one headline on a particularly critical story in Allure.

“At the end of the day, people like Robbie Tripp are generally innocuous, but he nevertheless perpetuates the overarching attitude that it is somehow abnormal or unacceptable to be attracted to a fat person,” Sam Escobar wrote. “What bothers me is not Tripp’s fondness for his wife’s body, but the way he pats himself on the back in the most public possible way — and that others are actually following suit. It’s neither revolutionary nor saintly to find fat women attractive, folks, and pretending otherwise is doing way more harm than good.”

Tripp was unapologetic in the face of the backlash, telling Mic that he and Sarah were focusing on the positivity.

“At the end of the day, anyone who hates my post is hating on a guy expressing his love and adoration for his wife. It’s that simple,” Tripp said. “I don’t see how some people can try to conjure up some dark ulterior motive from a simple post about a man loving and celebrating his beautiful wife.”

Then other social media posts by the couple surfaced, which are being criticized as discriminatory, racist and transphobic.

The posts have been deleted, but many people took screenshots and posted them online.

The posts include Sarah Tripp making jokes about chicken, watermelon and black people in 2012, Robbie Tripp telling black men not to wear do-rags in 2014 and Robbie Tripp saying “born a Bruce, always a Bruce,” in 2015 as Caitlyn Jenner announced she identified as female.

Robbie Tripp said people were using those social media posts to portray the couple as something they are not. He called the posts foolish, but did not offer an apology, according to Mic.

“We’re obviously embarrassed by those old tweets we posted when we had just a few hundred followers, before we even knew each other and when we were young, foolish college kids without any real awareness of our future careers in social media,” Tripp told Mic in an email. “None of those old tweets reflect our current views or who we are today. Sarah and I have come a long way in the past few years, growing and evolving as human beings and we have a strong commitment to spreading love and positivity through social media.”

Tripp declined to comment further when asked how his views had changed, according to Mic.

This story was originally published August 8, 2017 at 10:07 AM with the headline "He was hated for saying he loves his ‘curvy’ wife. Then more offensive tweets surfaced."