"Your stomach's too big to wear that swimsuit" - Taylor Townsend opens up about 'trauma' of shocking body-shaming experience through her mom & grandma

Taylor Townsend recently recounted her body image issues growing up - a lot of which she admittedly got from her mother and grandmother. The doubles World No. 1 claimed that their apparent projection made her feel so under-confident that she didn't wear a bikini until her mid-20s.

Townsend enjoyed a phenomenal campaign at the recently concluded US Open, reaching the Round of 16 in singles against all odds before a runner-up finish in the doubles event partnering with Katerina Siniakova. Ever since rising to the top WTA doubles ranking position in late July, the American has received a lot of media attention, and for good reason, too.

Earlier this week, Taylor Townsend sat down for a candid chat with "Pivot Podcast", where she revealed that her mother and grandmother would often tell her that her "stomach was too big" while she was growing up.

"And I realized that a lot of the voices and a lot of the things and a lot of the feeling that I felt and what I would see when I was looking in the mirror, it wasn't my voice. It was my mom's voice. It was my grandma's voice. 'Your stomach's too big to wear that swimsuit, you can't wear two-piece swimsuits,'" Taylor Townsend said during her recent appearance on Pivot Podcast. "I can't tell you, I didn't wear a two-piece bikini until I was 23, 24."

The 29-year-old added that her elder sister Symone also struggled with critical comments about her weight.

"'No, you can't. These jeans? No.' I would always, and it's even been an evolution of finding my fashion and being comfortable in clothes because I used clothes to hide. But that's what my mom did. And so I realized that there was a lot of trauma that was placed upon my sister and I, that wasn't even my own. So I'm carrying all this baggage. And now on top of that, I'm carrying this baggage that's already there."

For those unaware, Taylor Townsend has been facing off-handed comments about her body ever since she was a teenager. She even lost out on a prospective wildcard opportunity at the 2012 US Open girls' singles event owing to USTA's skepticism surrounding her fitness.

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"It was frustrating" - When Taylor Townsend reminisced about USTA snubbing her at US Open

Taylor Townsend hits a forehand during a practice session || Image Source: Getty

Ahead of the US Open back then, Patrick McEnroe was the General Manager of Player Development and played an instrumental role in Taylor Townsend not receiving a wildcard entry into the juniors' competition. The former player-turned-analyst claimed that the national tennis governing body had overlooked her out of "concern for her long-term health", which is something the American pro hit out at last year.

"This wasn’t the first time my fitness had come up. It was something I’d been working on with my coaches….. and I’ll be the first to admit that conditioning wasn’t an area of strength for me that summer," Taylor Townsend wrote in a Players' Tribune exclusive in 2024. "But I was still getting results where it mattered most, you know what I mean? It was frustrating!!"

Needless to say, Townsend has proved her detractors wrong since then. The 29-year-old, who is a single mother to four-year-old Adyn Aubrey, reached her career-high WTA singles ranking of 46 in August 2024. She also teamed up with Katerina Siniakova to capture Major titles at 2024 Wimbledon and the 2025 Australian Open.