Florence Welch: "The Big Issue is a vital lifeline"

 
Best-selling musician and fashion icon Florence Welch has hailed The Big Issue a “vital lifeline” for homeless people in Britain.

Writing to The Big Issue in response to the magazine’s 21st birthday this week, the Florence and the Machine star joined supporters including Stephen Fry, Charlotte Church and Ed Miliband in expressing her admiration.

“I love the Big Issue,” she said, “because not only does it give the homeless a voice, but it provides an important network of support and a vital lifeline to those seemingly without hope.”

In her message Welch also revealed her own big issue that we must address as a society.

“I know this is quite a pin pointed issue, but it’s been playing on my mind a lot recently: the fixation of the media on women’s bodies, flaws, and failings,” she added.

“I still feel women are judged far more harshly in the press, even though we are supposed to live in an age of equality. But with magazines and articles constantly set out to take women down for the most trivial of things i.e. their hair/weight etc, it seems we still have a long way to go.”

To read more of The Big Issue’s celebrity supporters' messages, buy the birthday magazine – on the streets until October 7