I was called ‘chubby’ and mocked for my ginger hair as a child – but shocked my bullies by becoming a swimsuit model
A woman who was bullied for her red hair and for being a ‘chubby kid’ has shaken off the criticism – to become a successful bikini model.
Carmen Rouse, 31, from Wales, now has thousands of followers on Instagram and even managed to land a finalist spot in Miss Swimsuit UK this year.
But she didn’t always feel so confident in her own skin and has revealed how she was bullied at school because of her weight and the color of her hair.
The bullying got so bad that Ms. Rouse spent the summer losing weight and dying her hair blonde, but she was still “bullied for a while.”
She told The Daily Star: ‘They always called me a bag of carrots instead of a bag of spuds… it was horrible.
Carmen Rouse, 31, from Wales, now has thousands of followers on Instagram and even managed to land a finalist spot in Miss Swimsuit UK this year
“So I thought, you know what? I’m going to the gym, I’m going to lose a lot of weight and I became bleach blonde during the summer holidays.
‘Then I went back to school as a completely new person and was still bullied for a while.’
The changes helped Ms. Rouse regain some lost confidence, but it wasn’t until this year that she felt comfortable enough to embrace her red hair.
However, she said that today she still receives harsh comments about her hair color.
“I still have red hair and I’m not going to change it,” she said.
Ms Rouse now has 19,000 followers on Instagram and says the sudden death of her partner last year taught her that life is too short to be bothered by negative comments.
“I’ve never been a very confident girl, with who I am as a person and what I look like,” the model said.
The bullying got so bad that Ms Rouse spent the summer losing weight and dying her hair blonde – but she was still ‘bullied for a while’
The changes helped Ms. Rouse regain some lost confidence, but it wasn’t until this year that she felt comfortable enough to embrace her red hair.
The 31-year-old said the other girls at the competition helped her “come out of my shell.”
‘Miss Swimsuit UK came along years and years later, (and it was) only this year (that) I was part of the final.
‘So I was terrified and I definitely had it in the back of my mind that ‘people are going to focus on you, point out negative things about your body and say something bad about your body’.’
The 31-year-old said the other girls at the competition helped her “come out of my shell.”
They were all “different shapes and sizes, different hair colors and personalities.”
She said everyone who took part in Miss Swimsuit UK had ‘each other’s backs’.
Ms. Rouse says negative comments don’t bother her.