Lizzie Velasquez delivers a speech during a conference at the National Auditorium in Mexico city, on September 5, 2014
Lizzie Velasquez, the activist once named the “world’s ugliest woman”, has described how she tackled bullying and online trolls by launching a global anti-bullying campaign.
Ms Velasquez, from Texas, has a rare syndrome preventing her from putting on weight. She weighs just 58 lbs and is blind in one eye.
At 17, she discovered a video of herself entitled “World’s Ugliest Woman” on YouTube. The video had been viewed more than four million times and garnered hundreds of cruel comments, including one telling her parents to “kill it with fire” and another asking why they chose not to abort her.
Ms Velasquez responded by launching an anti-bullying campaign, which she summarised in an inspiring TED talk in 2013. Her full speech has been viewed over seven million times.
The 26-year-old also launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise $180,000 (£107,000) towards a documentary on her life. A Brave Heart: The Lizzie Velasquez Story premiered on 25 September.
The film follows Ms Velasquez up until the moment her TED talk made her internationally famous and documents her fight to have the first federal anti-bullying bill passed by Congress.
