A 31-year-old bikini model has revealed how she has managed to deal with online trolls and school bullies and is now gallivanting around at glitzy events and showing off her new body.
Carmen Rouse was not always confident in her own skin and was bullied for being ginger-haired and being a bit of a “tomboy”.
Now she is a model and has landed herself a finalist spot in Miss Swimsuit UK 2023 and is often seen flaunting her toned body in bikinis.
Embracing her new confidence, Ms Rouse believes: “You are only young for a certain amount of time.”
However, the Wales-based beauty did not always have the confidence to post in swimwear on the runway and in front of cameras.
Admitting her fears in the Daily Star, she said: “I started getting into fitness first because I was quite a chubby child and I was ginger. So they used to call me a sack of carrots instead of a sack of spuds… it was awful.”
The model started to hit the gym and lost a lot of weight, and she went back to school as a “completely new person”.
Now, Carmen says she has surrounded herself with supportive women but is still trolled in her 30s. She even received criticism for her appearance when she appeared in a fashion Boohoo Man dating show.
She said: “I went onto Boohoo Man dating show and probably just got completely targeted with over a thousand comments saying that I look like a character from SpongeBob SquarePants, my teeth look messed up, my face looks messed up, I’ve had too much work done.”
Carmen revealed the comments “knocked” her confidence and affected her throughout the competition.
In Miss Swimsuit UK, the model believes it was the competing girls that pushed each other to increase confidence levels, and she believes the negative comments do not bother her anymore.
The Instagram star now boasts 19,000 Instagram followers and she is represented by an agency that invites her to celebrity events.
Her confidence has increased by leaps and bounds over the years. She said: “With walking around in a bikini all day, you’re embracing your figure and I just came out of my shell.”
She added: “You’re only young for a certain amount of time. So I thought I’m just gonna embrace my body until I get old.”
Thinking about her past looks, she said: “I still get called ‘ginger minger’ today and I’ve still got red hair and I’m not changing it. I went bleach blonde to hide away from the ginger but I thought, I’m a redhead at heart, it’s gonna stay around.”
