AN influencer has hit bad at trolls who say her facial deformity looks like badly-done filler.
Steph Heintz, 36, was born with a cleft palate and lip, and uses her TikTok presence to break the stigma around the condition.
Jam Press/Steph HeintzSteph Heintz (pictured) was born with a cleft palate and lip[/caption]
Jam Press/Steph HeintzThe 36-year-old posts regularly on Tiktok to raise awareness of the condition[/caption]
Jam Press/Steph HeintzThe fashion executive gets hateful comments from people online about her facial deformity[/caption]
“I really have kind of re-programmed the message in my brain to be like, if someone’s going to take a shot at me by calling me ‘botched Barbie’, they must think I look so good,” the New Yorker said.
A cleft lip or palate happens when the structures that form the upper lip or palate fail to join together when a baby is developing in the womb.
It is treated with surgery with the majority of sufferers growing up to have completely normal lives, the NHS says.
The fashion executive said she wished she had someone with her condition to look up to as a child, as it wasn’t spoken about as much at the time.
“I want kids to be like, ‘Oh my god, I’m beautiful too’ and to feel included,” she explained.
To build her confidence, Steph had various beauty treatments throughout the years, including laser for scarring and a small amount of lip filler to even the cleft lip out.
Even now, when the deformity is hardly recognisable, she still gets hateful comments online, with keyboard warriors daily asking her “when she’s going to fix her mouth”.
There have even been incidences of people bullying her in real life.
“People have screamed at me on the street, just absolutely insane things,” she explained.
By breaking into the social media sphere, the 36-year-old posts regularly for her 580,000 followers to raise awareness of the condition and break into the beauty scene.
She hopes to prove that her difference isn’t a disadvantage, it’s a “superpower”.
On occasion, the blonde bombshell still suffers from self-doubt.
“There are some times where I look at my videos, and I’m like, wow, my cleft is really showing,” she explained.
But she refuses to let the trolls get to her, calling her new found self-assurance “cleft confidence”.
She added: “There’s something about having a facial difference that’s just going to make you stronger, and more empathetic, which are irreplaceable golden traits.
“Your cleft is going to bring you uniqueness, it’s going to bring you a bigger heart, you’re going to have way more compassion and empathy.
“And you see the world just so differently that people can’t see.”
What is a cleft lip and cleft palate?
A ‘cleft’ is a gap or split in the upper lip or roof of the mouth and it is present from birth.
Cleft lips are where there split in the upper lip, while clef palates are splits or gaps in the roof of the mouth – it’s possible for baby’s to be born with both.
Both can range in severity.
A cleft lip can be just a small notch, and in others it can be a wide gap that reaches the nose.
A cleft palate can just be a small opening at the back of the mouth or a large split that runs all the way to the front of the mouth.
According to the NHS, the birth defect is caused because the babies face didn’t join together correctly during development in the womb.
They can usually be identified during the mid-pregnancy scan when you’re between 18 and 21 weeks pregnant.
Source: NHS