A model and businesswoman has opened up about the burden of being pretty and how it has negatively impacted her life.
Emily Adonna posted a video to her TikTok, revealing ‘pretty privilege’ isn’t what it’s cracked up to be.
When answering a question on the topic, the model admitted while her ‘good looks’ have provided her with a wealth of opportunities, it's come at a price.
"Pretty privilege is a thing, I'm not here to deny that," she said.
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She added: "But it comes with disadvantages. I've never been in a job where I haven't been harassed. I've rarely been in social situations where I haven't been harassed.
“People don't usually take 'no' as an answer with me, because they think I'm something to be possessed.
"People do not ask before touching me in public, I am grabbed regularly."
Her beauty has even undermined her work at times.
"I was once passed up on for a business opportunity because they said that I was too young and beautiful," she said.
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"They thought that would be distracting for the other people in the industry."
In a separate video, Adonna said that the harassment prompted her to shatter society's beauty standards as she pierced her nose and received hand tattoos ‘culturally designed to destroy beauty’.
In an interview with LADbible, the model revealed she first began noticing she was treated differently at the age of six - where she shared in a previous video that a teacher began grooming her by sending her love letters.
However, the unwanted attention didn’t stop there, as once the model began working in hospitality, it snowballed.
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She said: “At 15, I started working in a restaurant with all older people and one man actually got fired for grabbing me.”
She added: “It didn’t stop after that except for a brief period after I had my children when I was sleep deprived and had gained pregnancy weight. When I returned to my natural body, I became an object again.”
Adonna also noted that due to her appearance, people often view her as ‘highly sexual’ and feel entitled to her space.
As a result, the model and mother is less inclined to leave her home these days.
She said: “It’s definitely hard when people treat me like I should be grateful they’re grabbing me or making sexual advances because it must be what I want given the nature of how I present physically.
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“I honestly have started to become a bit of a hermit. I’m not sure if that’s the best way to navigate it but it will always sound better to me to be safe at home than convincing a stranger that ‘no’ means ‘no’.”
Charisa Bossinakis