American Aimee Mullins is one of the most beautiful people in the world. The American Paralympian has a difficult fate. She was born with a congenital disease and lost her legs below the knee in early childhood. Nevertheless, this did not prevent her from succeeding in almost all areas of life and finding personal happiness.
congenital hemimelia. When Aimee was only one year old, both of her legs were amputated due to congenital hemimelia. This is a pathology due to which a person has no or thickened and shortened peripheral parts of the limbs. Doctors told the parents that their daughter would likely use a wheelchair for the rest of her life and never be able to walk.
But by the age of two, Mullins had learned to walk independently on prostheses. Also at an early age, she began to play sports and acting. And in school, the American was among the best students.
Amy attended Parkland High School in South Whitehall, Pennsylvania and was one of three students who received a US Department of Defense scholarship to attend Georgetown University in Washington, DC. And already there, she became one of three students who won an internship under the foreign affairs program at the Pentagon.
Success in sports. Even while studying at the university, Mullins competed on an equal footing with healthy athletes from the National Collegiate Athletic Association. Moreover, she set personal records in athletics - 15.77 seconds in the race on prostheses at a distance of 100 meters, 34.60 seconds in the race at a distance of 200 meters and 3.5 meters in the long jump.
Amy also won a prize in the field trip program organized by the Pentagon. But she did not stop at student sports. In 1996, the athlete participated in the Paralympic Games in Atlanta. There she ran the 100m sprint in the T42-46 class in 17.01 seconds and jumped 3.14m in the long jump in the F42-46 class.
Mullins set world records in running and long jump among leg amputees. In 1998, she retired from sports and began a new chapter in her life - a modeling career.
Cinema and fashion. In 1999, the athlete worked as a model for the famous British couturier Alexander McQueen. In a dress that was made by the designer of his fashion house, Kate Middleton married Prince William. Aimee opened McQueen's London show on a pair of handmade ash wooden prosthetics with built-in boots.
And this was only the beginning of her creative activity. Mullins' face was on billboards across America as part of Kenneth Cole's "25 Years of Uneven Thinking" campaign in 2009. The athlete signed a contract with L'Oréal Paris and was named the firm's global ambassador in February 2011. And People magazine included her among the 50 most beautiful people on the planet.
Aimee has tried her hand at acting, starring as a cheetah woman in Cremaster 3, playing a reporter in Twin Towers, and also appearing on Stranger Things and The Five Little Pigs. Thanks to the cinema, the athlete met her future husband, actor Rupert Friend (Pride and Prejudice, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, Young Victoria, Hitman). The couple dated for three years before getting married and then tied the knot in a secret ceremony.
Activist and motivator. In addition to all the areas of activity in which Aimee succeeded, she did not disregard her physical feature. Only she does not regard the absence of legs as a disadvantage and does not consider herself an invalid. Mullins is a frequent speaker at meetings of organizations for people with congenital and acquired disabilities.
“People came up to me after the conference, after my speech, men and women. And the conversation went something like this: “You know, Aimee, you are very attractive. You don't look disabled." I thought: “Well, this is amazing, because I don’t feel disabled,” the athlete said after one of her performances.
Aimee has 12 pairs of prostheses in her arsenal. And she sees only pluses in them: after all, she has the opportunity to choose her height! This is not the case for most people on the planet. To get taller, girls wear high heels. And Mullins just needs to choose a prosthesis, to which she treats with a bit of irony. And healthy human humor:
“I have over a dozen pairs of prosthetic legs made for me by different people. I can change my height - I have a variable of five different heights. What is a body? And I wonder, in terms of identity, what does it mean to have a disability? I mean, for example, Pamela Anderson has more prosthetics in her body than I do. Nobody calls her disabled,” Mullins added.
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