Is Tess Holliday Married?

The Short Answer

Is Tess Holliday married? — the verified answer, based on reputable media reporting and public records, is covered in detail below. Tess Holliday is a public figure whose relationships have been documented by entertainment media over the course of a career in the public eye.

What follows is a fact-checked timeline: who Tess Holliday has been linked with, what is confirmed versus rumored, and where things stand now. Every claim is sourced — speculation is labeled as speculation.

Who Is Tess Holliday?

Ryann Maegen Hoven (born July 5, 1985), known professionally as Tess Holliday and formerly known as Tess Munster, is an American plus-size model, blogger, and make-up artist based in Los Angeles.

Early life

Holliday was born and raised in Laurel, Mississippi. Her mother left her father when Holliday was a young child, and Holliday claims her family moved 40 times before she turned 10.

In June 1995, her mother was paralyzed and disabled after she was shot twice in the head by her fiancé, who was charged with attempted murder. At the age of 10, Holliday and her brother moved back to their grandparents' house in Mississippi while their mother recovered.

Holliday was bullied from fifth grade on for her weight and pale skin, having a disabled mother, and because they lived in a trailer behind her grandparents' house. She left school at the age of 17 and earned her GED.

Holliday has also alleged that her father verbally abused her for her size, but that her mother encouraged her to become a model. Holliday has severed contact with her father.

At the age of 15, while she was a US size 16 (UK 18/20) and 5 feet 3 inches tall, Holliday auditioned at a casting call for plus models in Atlanta, Georgia, where she was told she would be lucky to do print advertisements or catalogue work because she was too short and big.

Relationship History

Holliday also self-describes as a "body positive activist". She embraces the word 'fat' and advocates that people should be able to eat as much and whatever they want without suffering from social ostracism. In 2013, she started her #effyourbeautystandards movement on Instagram. Holliday claims the movement shows women that they do not have to be a certain size to love their body (big or small) and that their size should not dictate their fashion choices. Since February 2015, Holliday has employed a team of six social media specialists to help manage her message across the world. She has said that the movement has led to women letting her know that they now feel good about how they look and wear what they like. She also talks at public events about body confidence.

In February 2014, Holliday appeared on Channel 4 News. In April 2015, she was interviewed by Meredith Vieira on The Meredith Vieira Show. In the same month, she appeared on Plus Sized Wars, a Channel 4 documentary about changing beauty standards and explores the fast-growing plus-size fashion industry.

In August 2015, Holliday demanded a boycott of Facebook, Instagram and Tumblr accounts under the name 'Project Harpoon', which photoshopped her image and images of other women including Rebel Wilson and Melissa McCarthy to make them appear slimmer without authorization. In September 2015, she criticized Victoria's Secret for their limited amount of plus-size clothing options.

Current Relationship Status

As covered by reputable entertainment media, Tess Holliday's current relationship status is a matter of public record where confirmed. For the latest verified updates, see the sources section.

Career Context

Subsequently, Holliday relocated to Seattle where she stayed for two years and worked as a make-up artist, hair stylist and creative director at fashion shows. She then moved back to Mississippi and gave birth to her son (at the age of 20). Then, following Hurricane Katrina, she returned to Seattle (where she had some pictures taken for her then-boyfriend and posted them on Model Mayhem in October 2009) then she moved to Los Angeles in 2010.

Her move to Los Angeles helped her gain confidence. She became a professional model in 2011 while working as a receptionist at a Los Angeles dental office. She responded to 'House of Dreams Model Search' by Torrid and was accepted. At the same time, A&E chose her to be the face of documentary television series Heavy after being discovered online. In June 2011, she became the face of the television show and was on an advert that ran nationwide and billboards across the country. Holliday has been featured on "fatshion" blogs, she models accessories and plus size clothing lines, and was contacted to audition for Vh1's The Big Girls Club. She has shot a campaign for Benefit Cosmetics, worked with David LaChapelle, featured in Vogue Italia and appeared in Nylon magazine.

In 2014, Holliday quit her day job at the dental office to pursue modelling full-time. In May 2014, a video was uploaded on Vimeo called #everyBODYisflawless, which featured Holliday and fellow plus-size fashion bloggers and models Gabi Gregg and Nadia Aboulhosn lip-synching and dancing to Beyoncé's 2013 song "Flawless". In September of that year, she was interviewed by Jacob Soboroff and Meghan McCain on TakePart Live.

In January 2015, London-based modeling agency Milk Model Management announced that they had signed Holliday to their plus-size division, Curves. They declared that Holliday had become the largest plus-size model of her size and height to be signed to a mainstream modeling agency and the first Curve model above a size 20. In May, she had her first agency shoot.

In March 2014, Holliday became the first model over size 18 to model Monif Clarke's clothing line after she was hired as the face of the latest campaign for her swimwear line Sea by Monif C - a line that is specifically designed for women sizes 14–24. In the same month, she modeled for Torrid. She also collaborated with the plus size clothing retailer Yours Clothing for the second time when she was officially announced as the face of their high summer campaign. In May 2015, she was featured on the cover of People.

In September 2015, Holliday starred in H&M's sustainable fashion campaign alongside singer Iggy Pop, artist Daniel Lismore, sex blogger Karley Sciortino and blogger Pardeep Singh Bahra. In the same month, she starred in Addition Elle's fall 2015 capsule collection campaign. In the same month, she also confirmed that she was in the process of designing her own clothing line. In November of the same year, she was involved in a fashion shoot for Marie Claire UK's December 2015 issue.

In January 2016, Canadian plus-size retailer Penningtons announced that the brand has partnered with Holliday to release a capsule collection bearing her name under their mblm label.

Privacy and Public Image

Like many public figures, Tess Holliday has balanced a public career with private life. Reporting here sticks to what has been confirmed on the record by the individual or by reputable outlets — not paparazzi speculation.

That boundary matters because Tess Holliday's fan base is large and highly engaged, which means unverified claims can spread quickly. The approach here is conservative by design: confirmed facts from named sources, clear labeling where information is limited, and no reliance on anonymous gossip. When reputable outlets have not confirmed a detail, this article says so rather than filling the gap with speculation.

Why Tess Holliday's Love Life Draws Attention

Public interest in Tess Holliday's relationships follows a familiar pattern for high-profile figures: a combination of on-screen charisma, selective public appearances, and the natural curiosity fans feel about people they admire. Entertainment media covers these stories because readers consistently search for them — which is exactly why verified, responsibly-reported answers matter more than rumor aggregation.

For Tess Holliday specifically, the career trajectory — from early roles to wider recognition — has kept personal life in the spotlight. Each new project tends to renew interest in the off-screen story, and each public appearance gets parsed for clues. The sections above separate what is actually confirmed from what is merely discussed online.

Frequently Asked Questions

Sources