Girl Is Mocked by Kids Labeled ‘Cursed’ for Her Appearance — It Later Brings Her Fame

• Christelle Mengue is an albino model who was bullied for her skin.
• She was born in Cameroon but had to move to Paris because she was believed to be “cursed.”
• But she became a model and started to promote diversity and self-acceptance

A 29-year-old woman named Christelle Mengue opened up about the torture and rejection she endured due to her albinism.

She tried her best to fit in and even lied about her identity, but she realized she needed to be better educated on her condition. So learning about it brought her self-acceptance.

Mengue skin was a weapon people used against her, but her journey to loving herself led her to become a successful model.

Mengue was born in Cameroon, and out of her six brothers, she is the only one with albinism. However, the bullying was so bad that her parents moved to France, Paris when she was five for her safety.

The 29-year-old’s condition was labeled a “curse” by a witch. Even though she moved for a safer life, things did not necessarily get better.

Mengue grew up in a white neighborhood in Paris and was never accepted, but even within her community of black people, she was still rejected.

When she was in Cameroon, her family loved her for who she was, but the rest of the community did not accept her. She even said medics called her disabled.

All of it did not make sense to young Mengue; she expressed, ‘When I was younger, I knew I was different, but I had no idea why – even when I grew up in a white community in France, I did not feel accepted.

School was not the most joyful place for Mengue because she was tormented by her skin, with kids calling her “weird, ugly, or a ghost.”

However, things got worse when she became a teenager. Mengue witnessed her friends get through puberty and get boyfriends while she was sidelined.

She tried to musk her skin by dying her hair darker and using darker makeup, with hopes that she would be seen as a mixed-race girl.

Nevertheless, after years of trying to shapeshift and fit different molds to be accepted, Mengue’s journey to self-acceptance started.

The cover-up started to become tiring for Mengue. Even though she suffered from low self-esteem and confidence, she was over damaging her hair and using makeup that did not match her skin.

During this time of her transition, Mengue was 19 years old and scouted by a French modeling agency which changed her perspective on albinism completely.

The 29-year-old realized that she had never seen people that looked like them on television or in magazines, but most importantly, she realized how much she had let people define her without doing her own research on albinism.

So, the model took it upon herself to do her research on albinism and learned that it was not a disability but a reduction of pigmentation. She had a perfectly functioning brain like any other person.

When she did her first photoshoot, she got to really appreciate her skin. Mengue said, “I looked back at the photos and realized I did not look that bad in photos and began to embrace my skin.”

Ten years later, Mengue is a successful model at Models of Diversity, an agency all about representing diverse models, and Mengue features in their latest calendar.

She hopes that her courage will bring other people out of their shells. ‘I am sharing my story to promote diversity – I hope other people see the calendar and realize anything is possible, the model explained.

Mengue had a journey full of ups and downs, but with every downfall came a lesson that brought her closer to freely and lovingly embracing who she was.

Here’s a story about another girl that was bullied and defied the odds