In the midst of a revelation about her fiancé, Whitney Way Thore is contemplating whether she will ever find a man "who can just feel lucky to have me."
In an exclusive clip from this week's episode of My Big Fat Fabulous Life, airing on Tuesday, Dec. 8, fans see the 36-year-old reality star in the midst of a tearful, candid chat with her best friend, Buddy Bell, about the harsh realities of her dating experiences.
"When people judge me for being who I am, if you're a man who also is with me, you're being judged as well," she tells Buddy. "I just want to be a normal person where some man who likes me feels lucky to have me and happy to be with me and doesn't have to deal with people wondering what the f--k is wrong with him and that will never happen if I'm the way that I am."
Elaborating further in a confessional, the star emotionally shares with viewers, "It's not lost on me that every man I've ever been with, I'm not what they usually like or they've never liked a fat woman or they've never found fat women attractive or whatever and, for some reason, they make an exception for me and then it's like, I feel like maybe they realize that it's not enough or it's too much. Even just being in public with me, you know, is not easy."
Back talking with Buddy, Whitney is insistent that she won't find the right partner. "I'll never meet a man who can just feel lucky to have me," she tells her friend. "That will never happen."
Then, she reveals what spurred this frank contemplation. "Part of me has to think, like, if I looked different would this have happened with Chase?"
In the course of the current eighth season, fans have watched as Whitney and her fiancé Chase Severino gear up to plan their wedding before the coronavirus pandemic brings everything to a halt. During a teaser for this week's episode, Whitney tells viewers, "Chase slept with a woman and found out that she was pregnant." As she's seen asking him on the phone, "Do you love her?"
Given the months-long time difference between real life and the show, fans already know that Whitney and Chase are no longer together. She announced their broken engagement in May along with the revelation that he was expecting a child with someone else. In September, he announced the birth of his baby girl, Aurora Joyce Severino.
During an exclusive interview with E! News in November, Whitney responded to claims that her relationship with Chase was fake.
"It's really disheartening to me that every relationship I've ever been in that's been public, people have said this. This is nothing new," she said. "I read about myself online all the time. People actually say that my friends are paid actors or that nobody could really like me, so obviously they must be getting a big benefit from it."
Whitney pointed out that she hears this kind of speculation especially when it comes to her romantic relationships with men. "It's not surprising. I think it's just sad. I think it's a sad reflection on the fact that people think that fat women can't be loved or that they have a feeling that this person is too attractive or this person's too good for her or why would they want her?" she explained. "To me, it just speaks about how people view fat women."
My Big Fat Fabulous Life airs Tuesdays at 9/8 c on TLC.