Grace Brumfield is a 17-year-old high school junior who lives in Alabama. She was excited to go to Homecoming because it was canceled last year due to Covid. She went to the dance with her boyfriend Zach, and she felt confident in a Princess Diana-inspired black dress.

Before the dance, Brumfield posed for photos with her boyfriend in a sunflower field that was planted in honor of their peer, Dalton Defilipi, who passed away in 2020.

Brumfield posted the photos on Instagram, and Zach’s mom posted the photos in a Facebook group. While many people liked Brumfield’s photos on Facebook, many other moms and grandmas wrote hurtful comments about Brumfield’s appearance.

 

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Brumfield explained, “My boyfriend’s mom started telling me how the pictures had somewhere around 32,000 likes. She was talking about all the nice comments, and then she said, ‘And of course, there are the negative ones as well.’ My heart kind of immediately sank because I felt so confident about my appearance and attire that night, and I didn’t want that confidence I had to be in a way stolen from me. I have been picked on my entire life—my freshman year, I moved schools because it got so bad.”

Some of the comments called Brumfield “trashy” and said that her dress was “inappropriate” and that she was “asking for it.”

Brumfield responded to one of the negative comment. She wrote, “I’m the 17-year-old in that picture that you, a grown woman, are talking about. I was not dressed like a “tramp.” My dress was finger tip length, my parents (60 and 52) both approved of the dress, and I had on shorts underneath. I hold myself to a very high standard because of my sport and I’m a pageant girl as well. I’m also 4’11 so I had my dress altered to look good on MY BODY and to fit MY HEIGHT. nice thy tho ma’am. I hope you have a nice day, and I hope you don’t call yourself a Christian when you’re calling a 17yr old a tramp.”

In response to the negative comments, Brumfield posted a video on TikTok showing the picture that was posted on Facebook along with the negative comments.

@mgracebrumfield##greenscreen I hate my town…##homecoming##karen##happierthanever##facebook♬ Happier than ever – Spam = bl🚫ck

Brumfield doesn’t seem to be letting the negative comments get her down. She told the press, “Homecoming was AMAZING! I had so many compliments on my dress, and it was our first homecoming since COVID, so they made it really nice and very special for all of the students! I made so many great memories, and the environment was just out-of-this-world amazing.”

TikTok viewers are also supporting her. One comment reads, “Raise your hand if you didn’t even notice the dress or length b/c you don’t feel the need to sexualize people and view them as objects.”

Another viewer wrote, “Parents are so concerned about bullying yet are fine with it when it’s their middle-age-self bullying minors on Facebook…”

Do you think her dress was “inappropriate”? Why do you think so many moms and grandmas felt the need to make negative comments about a 17-year-old girl’s appearance?