Lifestyle

‘Plus-size Hooters’ in booty shorts spark debate: We are ‘sexy and confident’

They’re serving up thick thighs, breasts and wings — and the thick girls want in!

Fried chicken chain Hooters is in the thick of yet another social media beef.

This time, the restaurant has been placed on a cyber rotisserie spit in the debate over whether its 420 franchisers should begin hiring full-figured women to sling their world-famous wings while donning their signature skimpy uniforms.

Plus size Hooters girls, very interesting,” an intrigued Twitter user wrote Thursday, responding to a viral picture of plus-size influencer Chynna Turner and her six equally statuesque friends dressed as sexy Hooters staffers.

But the band of buxom beauties, from Hattiesburg, Mississippi, isn’t employed by Hooters. In fact, they were only wearing the brand’s titillating togs as a group Halloween costume.

“My girls and I wanted to make a statement with our Halloween look this year,” Turner, 30, told The Post, a message deeply woven into her body-positivity platform, Big Dolls Empowerment. “Hooters typically discriminates against bigger women, but I figured showing up and showing out in the Hooters uniform would help spread the message that you don’t have to be a size 2 to do you in a sexy and confident way.”

Turner and her tribe of curvy cohorts purchased the eatery’s unmistakable hip-hugging, neon orange shorts and low-cut tank tops as a set for about $60 each on Amazon. On Sunday, they slipped into the fits and headed down to their local Hooters where they posed for their would-be trending snapshot.

And once online onlookers caught a glimpse of the voluptuous divas, digital demands for more body-inclusive Hooters girls erupted.

“The world’s first plus-size Hooters just opened up … I’m [on my way] to win customer of the year,” New York TikTok influencer Jaron Furches joked in the caption of the viral clip, featuring Turner’s Hooters photo.

The Bronx native’s video, posted Thursday, has garnered more than 5.6 million views.

Hooters — which found itself the center of the internet’s ire in October, owing to its since-rescinded mandate that their petite, albeit shapely, staffers wear “crotch string” shorts — did not immediately respond to The Post’s inquiry as to whether it has a branch that specifically employs curvaceous waitresses.

But Furches’ trending TikTok sparked a deluge of responses from audiences weighing in on the plus-size Hooters argument.

“[I’m] losing my MIND over the plus-size hooters, I’ve never wanted to go to f – -king hooters so bad in my life. In fact, I’ve never wanted to go to hooters in my life. but I do now,” an approving Twitter user wrote. 

Another in-favor tweeter said, “I’m happy to SEE BLACK confident plus-size sisters represent. Legs, thighs, arms, buts and all. Body shaming a person WON’T MAKE YOU LOOK GOOD. WHETHER IT Was a joke or real; THEY PULLED IT OFF. YOUR APPROVAL WASN’T AND IS NEVER NEEDED!!”

However, some ruthless keyboard critics condemned the idea of Hooters onboarding servers of varying sizes, spewing hate and vitriol at the women.

Hooters has yet to confirm whether it has actually opened a restaurant geared towards employing full-size women.
Hooters has yet to confirm whether it has actually opened a restaurant geared towards employing full-size women. Getty Images

“Fat women are gross, stop eating you fat pig,” one hateful commenter tweeted. “They eat the wings for you,” wrote a shameless body-shamer. “Hooters corporate going to send them a cease & desist,” penned another.

So far, Hooters has yet to openly comment on its most recent controversy.

But Turner, noting the mostly positive feedback her post has amassed, says the restaurant chain would be wise to begin adding bigger women to its menu of mouth-watering delights.

And to her Hooters haters, she’s happily serving them up a hefty helping of, “Screw you!”