I regret to inform you that Curvy Wife Guy is back. I also regret to inform you that he never actually went away. After his viral 2017 Instagram post about how much he loves his curvy wife — which was both celebrated as body positive and dragged as white-knighting masked as feminism — the Curvy Wife Guy, a.k.a. Robbie Tripp, fully leaned into his “I bravely love my wife who is not a size 2” persona. He released a single called “Chubby Sexy,” which has lyrics like, “Her inner-thighs chafe / She knows how they taste.” He wrote a book with the tagline, “An abstract manifesto for disruptive creativity.” He threatened to sue Babe.net for comparing his book to the Unabomber’s manifesto. He and his wife, fashion blogger Sarah Tripp, were called out for old racist and transphobic tweets. He continued posing with his wife’s ass. The man has been busy! Now, Tripp is doing the inevitable: reemerging on TikTok.
He currently has just under 20,000 followers on TikTok and a collective 431,000 likes on his videos, a far cry from the millions of followers and billions of likes of the most famous TikTokers. Still, there is certainly an audience for his content, in which he bravely loves his wife and other plus-size women. His most popular TikTok videos feature his song “Chubby Sexy” and show Tripp dancing near and pointing at women whom he has deemed as such.
Unlike the mixed reaction to his now-infamous Instagram post, the response to his TikToks have been surprisingly positive, at least within the confines of his comment section. “‘Chubby Sexy’ has gotten so much love on TikTok,” Tripp told MEL in a recent interview. “I just love how there’s a whole body-positive category of TikTok that’s encouraging to all sizes. Some people tend to forget that this whole viral ‘curvy wife guy’ thing started because I wrote a heartfelt tribute to my wife about how beautiful she is and how attracted I am to her.” Don’t worry, Robbie. We didn’t forget.
Still, his most popular TikToks feel like his viral Instagram post put to music. There’s often an unmistakable air of self-congratulation or uncomfortable objectification. His TikTok best exemplifying this is also his most viewed — one in which a bikini-clad woman is dancing to “Chubby Sexy” while he is just … there. Similarly, they’re being celebrated for doing the bare minimum in terms of body positivity and, ultimately, profiting off of pseudo-feminist ideas. However, Tripp would likely argue that this criticism is just unwarranted negative vibes. “If anyone hated my viral post about Sarah, then they’re just hating a husband who loves and adores his wife,” he said to MEL. “I never understood the ‘backlash,’ and still don’t.”
To Tripp’s credit, he has certainly stuck by his brand. Also, his wife doesn’t seem to mind. So, congrats to this man and his questionable content, I guess.
