A woman who was bullied over her red hair and ‘chubby kid’ status has escaped criticism and become a successful bikini model.
Carmen Rouse, 31, from Wales, now has thousands of followers on Instagram and even managed to land a finalist place in Miss Swimsuit UK this year.
But she didn’t always feel so confident in her skin and revealed how she was bullied over her weight and hair color while at school.
The bullying got so bad that Ms Rouse spent an entire summer losing weight and dying her hair blonde – but she still “was bullied for a little while”.
She told the Daily Star: “They were calling me a sack of carrots instead of a sack of potatoes… it was horrible.”
Carmen Rouse, 31, from Wales, now has thousands of followers on Instagram and even managed to land a finalist place in Miss Swimsuit UK this year.
“So I thought, you know what? I’m going to go to the gym, I’m going to lose a lot of weight and I went bleached blonde back in the day during summer vacation.
“Then I went back to school as a completely new person and got bullied a little bit again.”
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 she still receives harsh comments about her hair color to this day.
“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 she has learned, thanks to the sudden death of her partner last year, 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 an entire summer losing weight and dying her hair blonde – but she still “was bullied for a little 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 in the competition helped bring her out of my shell.
“Miss Swimsuit UK came years and years later, (and) it was only this year (that) I made the final.
“So I was petrified and I obviously had in my mind that ‘people are going to target you, pointing out the bad things about your body and they’re going to find something bad to say about your body.’
The 31-year-old said the other girls taking part in the competition helped her “come out of my shell”.
They were all “different shapes and sizes, hair colors and personalities.”
She said everyone taking part in Miss Swimsuit UK “supported each other”.
Now, Rouse says the negative comments don’t bother her.
