Former Dallas Cowboys cheerleader Claire Wolford responded to the body-shaming she received, saying that years ago, the comments would have sent her “into a spiral.”
Wolford, who cheered for the Cowboys from 2020 to 2024 but is now an All-Star for the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders, which is a group of former Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders who are not officially a part of the team but instead work as fill-ins when needed and perform at pregame appearances, filled in for a cheerleader during the Thanksgiving game. She said it had been two years since she performed on the field, but said the “negative body shaming” comments she saw on a video of her needed to stop.
“I just really hope people realize not the effect you had on me because I spent years of my life body shaming myself, over exercising, trying to make myself fit a certain mold, ugh, I’m going to cry,” Wolford said in a TikTok posted Saturday. “And I have healed from that and feel so much better about where I’m at with body image and what God says about me.”
She continued: “But you never know who are triggering and there are girls who see that and maybe are not the same, maybe bigger than me, smaller than me, whatever, and it causes them to stumble.”
Several current Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders offered their support, writing in the comments that Wolford is a “role model,” “inspiration,” and thanking her for sharing “such an important message.”
Elli DiGiovanni, another Dallas Cowboys cheerleader All-Star, said in a TikTok that she considers herself in shape but “there is nothing harder” than performing the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders’ signature pregame performance to ACDC’s “Thunderstruck.”
“It does not get easier,” DiGiovanni said. “Four years of doing it every game, practices, you are dancing at 110% every single time for four minutes straight and finishing with a full kickline and jump split.”
She continued, saying Wolford was asked to fill in for a current cheerleader because she is “so talented” and she “crushed” the performance.
“No one realizes how much pressure we already put on ourselves when we’re in that uniform,” DiGiovanni said. “I could cry right now. I’m getting emotional.”
She said the cheerleaders are “measured by every centimeter,” and the famous Dallas Cowboys cheerleader uniform is made to fit each cheerleader’s body.
“There is not a time that any one of us puts on that uniform and doesn’t look in the mirror and question ourselves for a second,” DiGiovanni said. ”‘Does my stomach look flat enough? Do my legs look good? Do I have rolls anywhere? Am I tan enough?’ It’s just always the self-question and self-doubt and judgment of ourselves that we already go through as young women who are trying to look perfect.”
It’s not the first time Wolford has been open about body-shaming comments she’s received. In a 2024 podcast episode, she said she had seen past comments of people calling her “obese” or saying she wouldn’t have made the squad years before, when the directors were stricter about the cheerleaders’ weight.
Throughout the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders’ history, the women have been expected to stay in shape. Director Kelli Finglass once said the ideal body shape of a cheerleader is that of an old pin-up girl: 36 inches at the bust, 24 at the waist, and 36 at the hips. On Season 1 of Netflix’s “America’s Sweethearts,” a docuseries that follows the cheerleaders throughout a year, Victoria Kalina opened up about weigh-ins and binging and purging food while she was on the squad.
“It’s a binge to get that feel-good, that empty feeling filled again, but then game time comes, so then you just gotta get into those baby clothes, get into that baby uniform and that cycle just keeps going,” Kalina said on “America’s Sweethearts.”
But more recently, Finglass has said the focus on the cheerleaders’ weight shifted because talking about it wasn’t effective.
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