They Called Her “The Ugliest Woman in the World”
- Expat Scribe
- Sep 9, 2021
- 11 min read
Updated: Nov 13, 2023
The Bully Annihilator: Triumph Amid Taunts
The Unusual Bio of the Wondrous Lizzie Velásquez
“Am I going to let the people who called me a monster define me? No, I’m going to let my goals, success, and accomplishments define me. The best way that I could get back at all those people who made fun of me, teased me, and called me ugly was to make myself better.”
Having a Zit-ty Day?
Have you woken up with a fresh new zit on your face or your head overrun by cowlicks? For many of us, especially females, the rest of the day is ruined. Often, what we fail to see is the triviality and temporariness of the situation. The cowlick can be tamed; the zit can be zapped with laser therapy, medication, or natural remedies.
But what if you wake up every day, look at the mirror, and stare at a permanent “unattractive” you? What if the appearance of your face, skin, and body does not fall under what most folks consider “normal”? Worse, what if your doctors proclaim you would have to live with this visage for the rest of your life?
The Odd One Out
This was what Lizzie Velásquez had to come to terms with from age five. She was born with Wiedemann-Rautenstrauch syndrome (WRS), aka neonatal progeroid syndrome (NPS), a rare genetic disorder characterized by a wrinkled, aged appearance upon delivery (she looks much older than her age), growth retardation before and after birth, and inability to store body fat and gain weight (called “lipodystrophy”).
As her body doesn’t store fat, she has to eat every 20 minutes throughout the day. Otherwise, her energy levels plummet.
Her other symptoms, like the Marfan syndrome, are life-threatening as they affect her eyes, heart, and bones. She is completely blind in her right eye. She is extremely susceptible to infection. Probably the most serious effect of her disease is that her aortic valve is in danger of bursting any moment, so she has to be on high alert all the time.
She lived most of her life undiagnosed until age 25 when a genetic doctor who attended one of her talks offered to give her a DNA test. Up until the diagnosis, she felt like a “walking question mark,” because she didn’t know what medical condition she had.
Despite the effects of her clinical syndrome, Lizzie does not want pity. Instead, she just wants people to treat her the same as everyone else.
But human nature imbues us with the tendency to be afraid of what we cannot understand. Unfortunately, her condition and appearance attracted the attention of schoolmates, passersby (both guileless children and tactless adults), and bullies. From an early age, Lizzie was the victim of the point-stare-and-whisper behavior.
In spite of the cruel reactions to her appearance and the bullying, she never told her parents about it. Instead, she would ensconce herself in the embrace of a warm bath, cry, and drown her sorrows there.
After suffering through much bullying during childhood, she picked herself up in middle school and joined as many organizations as she could. Her participation in many activities, including cheerleading, gave her much-needed self-confidence.
The Worst Storm of Her Life
However, all this work building her self-image came to a crashing halt when, at 17, she accidentally discovered a YouTube video labeling her as the “World’s Ugliest Woman.”
It was a cruel eight-second soundless video that generated 4,790,642 million views and thousands of comments. It was based on a previous TV interview of her when she was 11.
The comments were heartless. One of them stated, “You’re gross! I just threw up all over my keyboard.” Another said, “I pray to God it is sterilized and this monster is put to sleep.” And a third: “Lizzie, please do the world a favor. Put a gun to your head and kill yourself.” Some even asked why her parents didn’t abort her because she was so ugly.
She read all the comments, desperate to find a positive one or at least someone who stood up for her, but she found none.
That was her introduction to cyberbullying.
Naturally, Lizzie was devastated and cried for many days. Fortunately, the video became a turning point for her. She recalled, “When I saw that YouTube video, I was given two options: I could choose happiness or give up. Luckily, I chose to be happy.”
Fighting the Bullies
She converted this negative event into positive action by starting an anti-bullying movement and becoming a motivational speaker, social media influencer, and author. She has written four books.
Her first book, Be Beautiful, Be You, based on her life, reached number two on Amazon’s bestseller list. Her second is Lizzie Beautiful, aimed at young people and discussing self-image and self-esteem. Her latest book is Dare to Be Kind: How Extraordinary Compassion Can Transform Our World.
She conducts over 200 speaking engagements per year. She has even passed on her anti-bullying message to the students at her old secondary school.
In 2015, the Hallmark Channel interviewed Lizzie where she announced that she was lobbying for the first-ever Federal Anti-Bullying Bill: The Safe Schools Improvement Act. She said, “It’s an honor to be the voice of those who are not sure how to use their own.”
She created her own YouTube channel. Her show on Fullscreen, “Unzipped with Lizzie,” offers inspirational advice on matters like building self-confidence. A documentary was produced based on her life: “A Brave Heart, the Lizzie Velásquez Story.”
Her first TEDx talk was also the first one for women in her native Austin, Texas. It went viral and clocked 13 million views.
She has been featured on mass media, including Katie Couric, Dr. Drew, The View, The Learning Channel, Entertainment Tonight, The Today Show, and the Bobby Bones Show. While living with her condition has caused gargantuan challenges, Lizzie calls it the “greatest blessing of her life.”
When asked how she regards her bullies, she proclaimed, “Am I going to let the people who called me a monster define me? No, I’m going to let my goals, success, and accomplishments define me. The best way that I could get back at all those people who made fun of me, teased me, and called me ugly was to make myself better.”
Redefining Beauty and the Self
Society puts a premium on youth, physical beauty, fame, and material success, which makes many (especially the young ones) doubt their self-worth.
For a long time, Lizzie also fell for these unrealistic ideals.
When she was younger, her wish every birthday was to look like everyone else. She went from wanting people to recognize her abilities and look beyond her external appearance to realizing that we do not need to impress others but ourselves.
Throughout her growing-up years and in the midst of all her previous troubles, she underwent multiple processes of self-realization to finally determine how she would define herself. She asks the same of all her seminar attendees: “How do you define yourselves?”
She urges her audience to be in control of their lives: “You are the person in the front seat of your car. You are the one who decides whether your car goes down a bad path or a good one. You get to decide how you want to define yourself.”
“The world does not need you to change yourself to be more normal. What is normal, anyway? What the world needs is people who truly embrace differences, physical and otherwise.”
Today, she continues to be an inspiration to victims of bullying and self-doubt around the world, spreading information on kindness, acceptance, and self-realization. She has since created her own definition of beauty: “(You know you’re beautiful) when you can fully and proudly accept the uniqueness that is you.”
“If I could help a stranger—maybe a little girl in another country—to believe in herself and have faith that it’s going to be okay no matter what, that’s an incredible gift.”
Questioning Her Faith
Being human means problems get you down. No one is impervious to suffering or pain. There was a time when Lizzie also struggled with her faith.
“I couldn’t accept who I was. I didn’t know who else to blame (but God) because He did not make my miracle wish come true to make me look like everybody else. Good thing He proved me wrong.” She now has no regrets about the way she has turned out.
“I went from seeing my appearance and situation as being accursed to one of the biggest blessings I could ever ask for. I believe the (derogatory) video was meant to happen because that was what started me to turn on my light for myself. I now have this incredible platform God helped me create where I can shine my light for others and help them too.”
“Being vulnerable doesn’t make you weak but actually stronger. It’s absolutely okay to be vulnerable; to say, ‘I’m not doing so well today. I need some help.’ Don’t ever be ashamed to ask for help. There are people in this world who want you here, who are waiting to see the mountains you can move.”
“We all have a purpose in life. Some of us may need someone else to shine a flashlight on that purpose to find it. Others use that flashlight to find their purpose themselves and say, ‘I’m going to make that happen.’ I’ve been a bit of both. But the bottom line is that your purpose is there, waiting for you to shine a light on it.”
She also urges her audience to “be the voice of those who don’t have theirs.” Her parents were her voice until she found hers. She said in an interview with another social media influencer, Marie Forleo: “(Each of us) plays an important role in co-creating a kinder future. We can’t do it alone; it takes all of us working together.”
And now, she is shouting her message, not just from virtual rooftops but across all media channels.
Proving Her Detractors Wrong
It wasn’t just the bullies who put Lizzie down. Her own doctors told her parents that their firstborn child was not going to be able to talk, cry, crawl, walk, eat and drink independently, or fend for herself.
But her parents did the best they could and raised her normally. Her younger siblings, Marina and Chris, extended relatives, and friends never let her feel she had disabilities. That’s why she was so surprised when she started school and discovered she looked different from other kids.
Against all odds, Lizzie defied her doctors’ predictions that she would not live beyond her teens, much less live an independent, normal existence. She resisted her bullies’ provocation to end her life.
Her parents, her primary supporters, told her that she can do whatever she puts her mind to. As a result, she overcame her medical challenges, graduated from college, bought her own house, accomplished most of her goals, and is now God’s inspirational messenger and writer.
Now 34, Lizzie is living proof that it is possible to survive the NPS syndrome. Her genes are currently helping to provide (the medical community) answers. On her multiple speaking platforms, she is a raging, unbeatable force, delivering her message of hope to the downtrodden.
After being diagnosed, she said she no longer felt like a cryptic puzzle. “There’s a reason for everything. There’s a story behind every person. I’m no longer a question mark. I now live my life as an exclamation point and I hope you all do, as well.”
Turning the Negative Into Positive
Lizzie has learned to turn the negative aspects of her condition into positive ones. For example, she took advantage of the fact that she can only see out of her left eye. So if people annoy her, she just shifts to the opposite side, so she couldn’t see them.
She also saw the upside of her vision situation early on. Since she needs to buy only one contact lens and one prescription for her eyeglasses, she gets half off all her ophthalmic requirements—a huge discount every time!
Looking back, she also claimed that her condition saved her parents lots of money. Though the pregnancy of Rita Velásquez (Lizzie’s mom) was initially normal, when it was time for the ultrasound, the doctors realized fetus Lizzie had stopped growing. So she was force-delivered premature via emergency C-section. She entered the physical world without any amniotic fluid around her.
Infant Lizzie weighed just over 1 kg or 2 lbs, 10 oz when she was born. The normal newborn weight is 3.5 kg. She had excessive translucent skin with visible veins. (Adult Lizzie has never weighed more than 29 kg.)
Her parents bought clothes from Toys “R” Us for baby Lizzie because even the tiniest infant clothes did not fit her. However, she looks at it as a budget-saving feature, because, not only were her folks able to cut costs, when she got older, she also used her former baby clothes to clothe her dolls. That’s double the savings.
Her father Guadalupe inculcated the value of humor in the family. Velásquez learned through him how to make light of tough situations and not to take things too seriously.
Her dad was a teacher in her school. Whenever he and Lizzie crossed paths on campus, he always did something silly, like waving frantically or executing cartwheels. Lizzie was initially embarrassed by this but realized later that he did this to deflect the attention toward him and away from her because people always stared and pointed at her in the hallways.
Her dad always told her she could have one good cry (as a reaction to a bad event), but afterward, she should put her chin up, smile, and move on to the positive.
Going back to the offensive video, Lizzie did not tell her parents about it because she did not want to add to their daily worries, but they found out. They contacted the producer of the video but he/she refused to take it down. Unfazed, Lizzie used it to goad herself into action. Whenever she felt deflated, she watched that video and read the comments to motivate herself to accomplish more.
After several years, the video was finally taken offline. There was no explanation as to how it happened, nor who had taken it down, nor if YouTube’s administration forced the producer to delete it.
Irritatingly, another one took its place in 2013 uploaded by someone else, this time with a frightening music background. The uploader had over a million subscribers, who Googled Lizzie and sent her really hateful messages.
This time, after having her “one good cry,” Lizzie asked herself, “What great accomplishment is this video going to lead to, next?” Let us take this kind of positivism and apply it to our lives.
When asked by a TV host what she would say to her bullies today, Velásquez replied that the best revenge is to amplify one’s accomplishments. “So I would say, I won!” Way to go, Lizzie!
What Does it Mean to be Human?
Velásquez says, “It’s one of the greatest gifts in the world. It taught me that I can be really strong and that I can overcome any obstacles. It has allowed me to feel every type of emotion that a human being is meant to feel. I always try to find the humor in any situation no matter what because, at the end of the day, I know it’s going to be okay.”
Asked what her ultimate wish is, she replied, “Universal acceptance for everyone in the world. I wish that there is no hate or discrimination toward anyone. Ultimately, we all just want to be accepted.”
Takeaway
Now that you have had a glimpse into Lizzie Velásquez’s life, do you still think your appearance is the absolute definition of your measly existence? Do you still view your life as a mess? We certainly hope not.
We shared her story so you can see the rainbow after the storm, that there is a solution to even the direst of situations.
Let us learn from her example. Like her, may we also be a light and a voice for ourselves and others.
If you would like to comment on this article—or give constructive criticism, make suggestions, share your story, or be a contributor to our blog, please do so using this contact form. We keep our readers’ information private. Thank you in advance for your contribution.
Expat Scribe is the author of the psychological techno-thriller, “The Invisible Cyber Bully: What it’s like to be watched 24/7.”
The novel tackles the surreptitious bullying and illegal surveillance, DNA-extraction, psychological torture of, and experimentation on ordinary citizens by law enforcers, scientific laboratories, various “hidden” associations, and global authorities. Some chapters discuss the garden-variety bully from schools and neighborhoods. The book also features a primer on how to fight cyber bullying.
“The Invisible Cyber Bully“ is available on Amazon worldwide in ebook and print edition. For a list of bookstores in other countries that stock this book, click here.
Sources:
TEDx Austin Women: How do you define yourself? Lizzie Velásquez
Katie Couric: Woman Called “World's Ugliest Woman” Becomes Inspiration to All
Marie Forleo: Lizzie Velásquez—Why We Need to Take a Radical Approach to Kindness
AAP Experience, National Conference & Exhibition in Philadelphia: Lizzie Velásquez—Finding My Voice
MedicineNet: Lipodystrophy (Acquired, Generalized, Inherited)
Photo Credits:
Fruits—Brooke Lark
Lizzie’s file photo—Larry D. Moore. This image is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.
Anti-bullying—RODNAE Productions
Silhouette—Jill Wellington
Two little girls crossing a bridge—Cheryl Holt
Skogafoss Waterfalls, Iceland—Jonatan Pie
Ugly duckling thumbnail—Andrea Lightfoot
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