BILLIE Ward, 24, is a trainee teacher and lives in Shropshire with her husband Josh, 26, a safe engineer, and their children Arete, two, and Olive, 17 months.
Watching the views of my video climb higher, I was stunned when they hit a million.
There were people all around the world watching me dance in my underwear!
I’d come so far from the girl who hated her body.
At school, I was bigger than other girls.
Bullies would call me ‘tree-trunk thighs’ and I felt sick with anxiety every time I changed for PE.
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The shame hung over me for years.
But things changed when I met Josh in 2015.
We were friends first, hanging out in the village where we lived, then a few months later we began dating.
Having someone who loved me helped me learn to love myself, and while I still struggled with self-esteem, my confidence grew.
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I began experimenting with make-up and posting selfies on social media, building a following on Instagram.
But I couldn’t quite love my body and rarely uploaded full-length photos of myself.
Hitting my 20s was a watershed moment.
I wanted the same love for myself as the plus-size influencers I followed, and I hoped that sharing more of myself on social media would make me feel empowered.
In April 2019, I posted an underwear selfie.
Uploading it, my heart was pounding.
While I knew Josh supported me, I had to steel myself for everyone else’s reaction.
I prepared myself for negative comments about my then-size-14 body.
But instead, people cheered me on, saying it was amazing to see a normal body.
I began getting hundreds of likes on my posts and brands including Bravissimo and Boux Avenue wanted to collaborate with me.
With every post, my confidence grew. I was building a community around me of women who’d been inspired to accept their bodies, too.
Bullies would call me ‘tree-trunk thighs’ and I felt sick with anxiety every time I changed for PE.
I did get negative comments, too, mostly from men, calling me ‘fat’, who I’d block.
It’s hard not to let the trolls get to you, but Josh and my family were always supportive when the negativity left me low.
In October 2019, I was diagnosed with perinatal depression while pregnant with my first child.
When Arete was born in January 2020, I suffered from postnatal depression (PND) following an emergency home birth.
Four months later, I discovered I was pregnant again, and Josh and I got married in December 2020.
With so much going on, I took a step back from social media after Olive was born in February 2021.
It was in the summer that I decided to return to posting.
I was different now, a size 18 with cellulite, thick stretch marks and saggy 32GG boobs from breastfeeding.
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But I loved my body – it had carried and birthed my daughters.
I began creating TikToks in my underwear, with body positivity messages plastered across, hoping to reach other women who’d struggled as I had.
In March, I spotted a trend showing people’s height and weight next to a video of them in their underwear.
Most people doing it were petite influencers.
I wanted to change that.
Until then, my videos hadn’t had more than 10,000 views, but this one hit 1 million within six days, and my followers went up 5,000 to 38,000 on Insta and TikTok.
I was different now, a size 18 with cellulite, thick stretch marks and saggy 32GG boobs from breastfeeding. But I loved my body – it had carried and birthed my daughters.
I was shocked, but thrilled!
I’m training to be a teacher and a school I worked at asked me to make my social media private, but I refused.
My placement there has now finished anyway, but going forward, I want to teach children how important it is to love their bodies.
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Last summer, I posed naked in body paint in Trafalgar Square, with 50 women who’d fought their own body battles, as part of a project by artist Sophie Tea.
My heart was racing, but I felt powerful, confident and thankful for my body.
My mission is to help other women and my daughters feel the same way.
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