‘It’s very disappointing’: Olly Murs responds to the messy debate about his body transformation

Twitter has been embroiled in a fierce debate over “what women really want” in a man after Olly Murs showcased his insane muscular transformation on Instagram. He’s now responded, and it’s all very messy.

The ridiculous internet trend was seemingly started by evolutionary psychology researcher William Costello, who asked his 15k followers whether they preferred Olly Murs with a “dad bod” or the muscle-bound body mums across the nation are thirsting over. Soon enough, a tweet from @justalexoki had received 84 million views on Twitter and literally thousands of responses debating what women really want a man to look like.

why are women lying about this? like what's the actual cause? pic.twitter.com/RM3b82jIF4

— taoki (@justalexoki) April 26, 2025

“No, he does look better in the before. Women are correct on this one, I fear. Guys obsess over these supremely tight, toned muscles, and they shouldn’t,” one person said in response.

Someone else argued: “The aesthetics of a man who poses gives them the ick. But if both were shirtless at a beach, they’d obviously prefer the fit guy.”

“Cause the guy on the left looks built from yard work, sugar cookies, and proper meals made with love, while the guy on the right looks like he’s made out of lean chicken breasts, creatine supplements, and a variety of routine intramuscular injections,” another said.

Here I was thinking that every individual woman has a preference unique to her, but apparently, all four billion women can only be into a singular body type. Who knew?

Olly Murs hit back at those commenting on his transformation

Soon enough, the story was picked up by numerous UK publishers, including the MailOnline and The Sun, with the former publishing the following headline: “Bad luck, Olly! Women prefer your ‘huggable dad bod’ to the muscles you got in the gym.”

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After picking up a copy of The Daily Mail earlier this week, Olly posted a lengthy statement on Instagram that has since received 150k likes and hundreds of comments. Some are STILL debating the transformation.

“I wouldn’t normally comment on stuff like this, but from what I’ve seen, I just want to say that this journey at the start of the year was for many personal reasons, and not one of them was to spark a debate and divide opinions. So it’s very disappointing to see this kind of reporting!” he penned.

“Big Love to everyone who’s been kind and to anyone out there improving themselves and making adjustments to their wellbeing. Love to you all, keep it up! Ignore the noise!”

Amidst celebs such as Ashley James and Jake Quickenden showing Olly love in the comments, the original poster, William Costello, posted the following apology: “Hi Olly! I’m sorry that the poll got so out of hand and took on a life of its own. I knew it would reveal sex differences in perception, but I didn’t want any derogatory attention levied towards you. I think you look great in both shots, and I’m a fan of your music. Keep killing it.”

On Twitter, her further implored his followers to “show Olly Murs some love” on Instagram and download his music.

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Featured image credit: Olly Murs/ITV