James Blake has spoken out about his girlfriend’s health after a wave of conspiracy theories accused her of faking illnesses. ‘It’s pretty disgusting to watch the woman I love just be dog piled on every day for such ridiculous things,’ said James, in a statement posted to twitter. ‘She does this because she had such a difficult life. Because she doesn’t want others to feel alone, gaslit or ashamed the way she has.’
Let’s back-track a little. Following some very enthusiastic activity in the bowels of the internet’s most savoury forums, a group of self-styled sleuths decided that Jamil’s health problems – including Elhers-Danlos Syndrome, cancer and the results of two car accidents, about which she has always been open and candid – didn’t add up. Accusing her of inconsistencies in the accounts, and inexplicably grumpy about someone having multiple diagnoses, the trolls assigned her a whole new one – Munchausen’s syndrome.
Munchausen’s is a psychological condition where sufferers complain of fictitious ailments – or even induce their symptoms – for attention, sympathy or other reasons. Following the nasty rumours, Jameela took to twitter to fight back against her detractors. ‘Not afraid of you or your dumb internet conspiracy theories. Keep them coming. You just add to my relevance. I’m gonna keep helping people with eating disorders, and changing laws and global policies to protect kids and their mental health and there’s NOTHING you can do about it’, she wrote, after referencing the recent uproar following her coming out as queer in a separate tweet. ‘First I’m lying about my sexuality, now I’m now being accused of munchausens? By an unhinged idiot who didn’t even realize in all her “research” that my car accident injury stories are “different” because they were about TWO SEPARATE CAR ACCIDENTS 13 years apart? You can keep it.’
In his statement, James went into detail about the reality of living with someone suffering from multiple conditions. ‘I am there for her swollen joints, her dislocations, her severe allergic reactions, her constant high fevers. I was there for her concussion, her three months of seizures, when the doctor gave her the cancer diagnosis, and for all her operations and their complications due to EDS’, he said. Charitably reminding online onlookers that he can reasonably claim a more informed perspective than someone commenting from behind a screen, James continued ‘I can feel the lumps in her back from the car accident and see all the scars. I am there when she turns down amazing job opportunities because of her health limitations.’ To summarise, ‘I actually live with her.’
Quite. In more cheerful news, supporters of Jameela have started an ironic list of rival conspiracy theories on Twitter, playfully accusing her of everything from founding Flat Tummy Co. to assassinating Kennedy. A personal favourite is the faux-revelation that it has always, in fact, been Jameela Jamil who let the dogs out. Who? Who? Now, at last, we can sleep easy.
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