Lady Rerun Vs. The Internet

Have you ever had a moment where you do something very simple without putting much thought into it, yet it ends up changing your life? That’s what happened to Portia “Lady Rerun” Allen, when she decided to enter two online contests.

Portia, who is the daughter of Fred “Rerun” Berry from the 1970’s sitcom, “What’s Happening!!” decided to follow in her father’s footsteps by becoming an entertainer. At 4’9 320 lbs, she is a plus sized model, radio & event host, and actress. She’s found that while her size does sometimes give people the wrong impression of her, she enjoys proving those same people wrong by showing a huge heart and spirit also exists inside of her large frame.

Having a father that was in the entertainment industry taught her early on that any publicity could be good publicity, that even negatives could be spun into positives. That being the case, Portia knows that her size can help her reach out to women of all shapes, sizes and races, because nearly all women face body image issues.

Because she is constantly grinding to reach the next level of success, Portia decided to enter Safe Auto’s DoTheJingle.com contest and she entered to be the spokeswoman for the Eyes Lips Face cosmetics line.
For the Safe Auto entry, Portia was lounging poolside as she talked about Safe Auto and sang their jingle. In the E.L.F. entry, she simply submitted a few pictures of herself, as the rules stated. Things started out innocently enough as her supporters rallied around her, leaving positive comments and her voting to the top in both contests nearly from the beginning. But then things got strange.

For the Safe Auto ad, people began leaving comments saying things such as “pool’s closed,” a statement she later learned was to indicate that because AIDS was in the pool, no one swam in it. They also started leaving lewd comments about her weight, a situation that Portia is unfortunately all too familiar with.

For the E.L.F. ad, she also got negative comments about her weight. On both websites, people claiming to be her supporters went on the pages of other contestants, claiming to be a fan of hers, and bashing others. Users began to complain that Portia was obviously rigging votes (the notion was that an overweight woman couldn’t possibly have as many supporters, especially for the cosmetics line).

One band that was close to the lead in the Safe Auto ad quit the contest because they felt that there was clearly some type of unfair voting advantage to her. She also found an Encyclopedia Dramatica website about herself. On it, they insulted her Internet radio show, her game show appearance on the short-lived Fox show “Hole In the Wall,” her movie appearance and pretty much every other project that she has worked on.

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