Let me take you back to 2010: I had three amazing kids all under the age of five. Life was busy, and I was massively sleep deprived. Oh, and I was absolutely obsessed with how much I hated my body.
I started relentlessly working out and restricting my calories. As my weight dropped, I decided to enter a bodybuilding competition. Up there on stage, slathered in fake tan and wearing a tiny bikini, I had a moment of absolute clarity. The ‘perfect body’ was not the answer. Maintaining this size and shape was completely unsustainable. I was miserable, hungry, and had almost no time for my kids.
A few months after the competition, I posted a photo on social media that summed up how I was feeling. It was my take on the classic ‘before and after’ diet pics — except my before photo was taken at the bodybuilding competition, and my after photo was a more relaxed me, sitting on a chair — in the nude — with a few rolls and a big smile.
To say the photo went viral is an understatement. It made headline news around the world and, all of a sudden, I was in the middle of a media frenzy. My photo was featured on Good Morning America and NBC’s Today Show. Russia’s national broadcaster even sent a TV news crew halfway around the world to interview me at my house!
And then the emails started landing in my inbox … 7,000 heartbreaking stories from people all around the world who hated their bodies. I felt such a huge responsibility to help the people who shared their experiences with me.
And that’s when the Embrace film was born.
I was sure the world needed to hear this story, so I got to work hustling and raising money to share it. More than 45 million people watched the trailer on Kickstarter and agreed that this film had to be made. We raised a record-breaking $331,046 from 8,909 backers. It was time to do this!
The Embrace film follows me as I travel around the world trying to understand why so many people hate their bodies. I interviewed amazing people from the US, UK, Europe and Australia, including TV show hosts Ricki Lake and Amanda de Cadenet, and ultra marathon runner Turia Pitt. The film was released in 2016 at the Sydney Film Festival and quickly became one of the highest grossing documentaries ever released in Australia.
Next stop: the world.
I was so passionate about getting people to watch our film because I knew it had the power to save and change lives. In the US, when I saw massive billboards advertising the film 50 Shades Darker, I knew we had to do something wild to get attention. So in the middle of NYC, I started the Race to Embrace by giving out thousands of dollars worth of $10 notes to women and asking them to download and watch the Embrace film. If they loved the film, I asked them to pass the $10 on to another person, and keep the race going. And guess what, it still is!
The buzz was global. The Embrace film reached #1 on the iTunes documentary charts in the USA, UK and Canada. On opening night in Germany, 52,000 people came to watch the film and pushed it all the way to #1 at the box office — toppling Guardians of the Galaxy and King Arthur from the number one spot!
Over in the UK, 2,000 people hosted public screenings for tens of thousands of viewers. To support these public events, we created the Embrace Education Study Guide UK to inspire life-changing body image conversations. Then, we released the guide to every secondary school across the UK — for free!
The Embrace film helped launch the Body Image Movement around the world and inspired millions of people to change the way they think about their bodies. It was the first big story we told in a long list that includes hundreds of keynote speeches, multiple books for adults and children, a magazine, the Embrace Kids film, and even our very own song!
Find out how you can watch the Embrace film in your country.
