Audi Crooks Said She’s Received “Crazy” Body Shaming Comments Since Middle School

Throughout most of her life, all eyes have been on Audi Rae Crooks. Those attuned to women's basketball discovered her greatness when she was in middle school, and her star only continued to shine when she became the star basketball player at her high school, Bishop Garrigan High School, in Iowa.

Audi's stellar time on her high school's basketball team resulted in her attending Iowa State, where she gained even more attention as the freshman to watch. While most of the attention has been positive and well-deserved, the athlete has also sparked unwarranted discussions about her body, particularly her having a bigger frame.

Amid the chatter, Audi has opened up about how the body shaming comments have affected her. Here's what to know.

Discussions about Audi's figure have been scrutinized over the years, and, according to Sports Illustrated, the comments only continued when her team, the Iowa State Cyclones, began losing games in January 2026 after a winning streak in late 2025. The 6-foot-3 forward Center (C)'s body frame came up due to fans critiquing her defense ability.

While Audi didn't address the 2026 concerns about her figure, she has previously opened up about seeing strangers talk about her body.

According to her 2024 interview with Talia Goodman for On3 Sports, the athlete said she began seeing social media comments about her body when she was featured on ESPN at 13. Audi revealed that she was disheartened to see how many people were focused on what she looked like rather than her basketball skills.

"That was hard for me as a young girl,” she shared. "I think the first time I got posted on ESPN, I was in seventh or eighth grade and I definitely wasn’t developed and I wasn’t really in shape. Seeing that when you’re 13 and there are grown men talking about you and your body instead of the game that I’m playing – that’s crazy. That was a lot for me to handle at such a young age.”

Audi said she noticed the body shaming comments even more after she led Iowa State to a NCAA Tournament victory in March 2024. The win resulted in multiple hateful posts, some of which came from celebrities such as former NFL wide receiver Antonio Brown.

Audi may know that the comments about her body probably aren't going anywhere (as that's how society prefers it), but she's not letting her haters keep her down. The college athlete's career is only rising from here, and she knows her optimistic personality and character, not what she looks like, is what's going to keep her succeeding in the industry.

"There might be 100 comments about my body or about how I look. But then there are 1,000 about my skill set, about my character, about how I smile and about how I treat other people,” Audi said later in her On3 interview. “So it’s just like I said, no matter what you do, no matter who you are, if you’re doing something worth doing, then somebody’s going to hate on you. It’s just recognizing that and trying to take the bad with the good – and the good clearly outweighs the bad.”

She also shared that, when times get hard, she remembers the love and values her father, Jimmie Crooks, instilled in her before he passed away when she was 16. Audi's mother, Michelle Cook, also taught her daughter to "kill them with kindness" and, based on her positive attitude and infectious smile, she heeded to her mother's advice.