Man Says He Stands by Fat-shaming Email He Sent to News Anchor Jennifer Livingston
Kenneth W. Krause of La Crosse, Wisconsin, has come forward as the man who sent a fat-shaming email to WKBT-TV morning news anchor Jennifer Livingston last week. And he says he stands by his original email.
"Given this country's present epidemic of obesity and the many truly horrible diseases related thereto, and considering Jennifer Livingston's fortuitous position in the community, I hope she will finally take advantage of a rare and golden opportunity to influence the health and psychological well-being of Coulee Region children by transforming herself for all of her viewers to see over the next year," he said in a statement. "And, to that end, I would be absolutely pleased to offer Jennifer any advice or support she would be willing to accept."
It's unlikely that Livingston will be turning to Krause for advice any time soon.
"I don't take a lot of crap from people," she told Al Tompkins at the Poytner Institute on Tuesday night. She said she had emailed back and forth with Krause a few times, but he refused to back down. "I said, 'Whoa buddy, this is far beyond what is OK to write to somebody in an email, even somebody who is in the public like me.' "
His response? "He kept saying I was a poor role model," Livingston said.
Livingston, who has been the station's morning news anchor for more than 10 years, has shared plenty of personal information with her viewers, including her struggle with infertility. When she finally became pregnant, she took her fans along for the ride, sharing the experience in a baby blog. She's now the mom of three daughters.
Her children were one of the reasons she decided to take the fat-shaming email public.
"What I was thinking instead was, I'm having conversations with my 10-year-old daughter about bullying right now and I'm telling her, I'm trying to inspire her that if she sees bullying happen in other people, she needs to take a stand, it's important to take a stand," she said on the Today show on Wednesday. "What kind of message am I teaching her when my husband and I are talking about this mean email that I received and I'm not taking a stand for myself? I can stand up for myself, there's a lot of people that can't. And I'm gonna do it."
WKBT-TV News Director Anne Paape said that Livingston had gotten Krause's permission to let the community comment on the situation. "He agreed, and the conversation suddenly got a lot more inclusive," Paape said."
"I have never been more proud of her or this TV station," Paape added.
Livingston says that her weight became an issue -- for her, not for her bosses or for the TV station -- after she had children and developed a thyroid problem that makes weight loss difficult.
"What really angered me more so than his attack on her not being a role model for the community is that he doesn't know Jennifer. He doesn't know me. He doesn't know our family," her husband, WKBT-TV evening news anchor Mike Thompson told "Good Morning America" on Wednesday. "He doesn't know that Jennifer has ran triathlons. He doesn't know that she ran in a race last weekend, a 5K race. She works out two or three times a week. She is going to run in a race this weekend. He doesn't know that."
"He just decided to attack her for no reason," Thompson added.
"This was a personal attack," Livingston told "Good Morning America." "Calling me obese is one thing. Calling me a bad role model for our community that I've worked at for 15 years and especially for young girls when I have three girls was a low blow and I thought it was uncalled for and I wanted to call him out on it."
"I would not choose to be the weight that I am," she told Poynter. But "I don't wallow in the fact I am overweight. I am not promoting my lifestyle."
