My Big Fat Fabulous Life's Whitney Way Thore Defends Filming Mom's Funeral

The reality star took to Instagram to share a message and defend her decision.

"I know a lot of people hate me, and I don't care why," Thore wrote. "I know that I've dealt with stalkers, vandals, death threats, and harassment online and off to the point of developing severe anxiety and almost never leaving my house. I've dealt with this for the last decade, mostly very quietly, but PLEASE, I am asking some of y'all to think."

"However much you need the hate that you feel toward me to keep you busy, or entertain you, or distract you from your own s---ty life, PLEASE remember, just for this one instance, that you’re talking about my dead mother and there is a family who reads this," continued Thore, who also read her caption aloud, with her voice wavering as she spoke.

"There are humans who are grieving who read this. I know my life is a big joke to many of you — something you can hate watch and gossip to your friends about," she concluded. "But the way some of y'all are is terrifying and my poor father does need to read this s---. I'm asking you, just this once, to think about my father and my family. He doesn't deserve to read these things."

Her post also included a screenshot of a text conversation she had with her father Glenn and her brother Hunter, reacting to some of the backlash they received.

Saying he saw how some were "critical" of their choice to film the funeral, Glenn said, "When I was making the decision to allow her funeral to be filmed, I thought about people like Princess Diana or more recently the Queen of England whose family felt that having their loved one shared with an adoring public was the reason to put their private aside."

Whitney was seen responding to her dad, telling him to ignore the haters, before adding that her late mother would be "so very proud of you."

Her brother Hunter echoed that sentiment, saying, "Whitney is right. Love you guys."

Thore's mother died on December 7, 2022 at the age of 76. Thore shared a tribute to her mother in an Instagram post, where she told fans her mother passed.

"My mother died last night just as the credits rolled on her favorite movie," shared Thore. "Dad, Hunter, and I held her as she took her last breaths. It was 10:32pm, the same exact time she brought me into this world almost forty years ago."