{"id":213656,"date":"2026-04-29T04:18:20","date_gmt":"2026-04-29T04:18:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/213656\/"},"modified":"2026-04-29T04:18:20","modified_gmt":"2026-04-29T04:18:20","slug":"i-went-from-bullied-teen-to-beauty-queen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/213656\/","title":{"rendered":"I went from bullied teen to beauty queen!"},"content":{"rendered":"

After years of experiencing all types of bullying, Hannah Swinnerton, 31, has risen above\u2026<\/p>\n

I jolted up in bed to the sound of my phone buzzing.<\/p>\n

It was the early morning, and the call was from an unknown number.<\/p>\n

\u201cHello?\u201d I whispered.<\/p>\n

\u201cGo dig a hole and bury yourself in it!\u201d a voice jeered as a crowd of laughter echoed in the background.<\/p>\n

Then the line went dead.<\/p>\n

It was yet another prank call from my peers at school.<\/p>\n

Pulling the covers up, I cried myself to sleep.<\/p>\n

I was in Year 12, but the bullying had started when I was just six.<\/p>\n

At school, kids would call me names.<\/p>\n

\u201cHippo!\u201d one would yell from across the classroom as they all laughed.<\/p>\n

\u201cFatty!\u201d another wouldjoin in.<\/p>\n

The heckling didn\u2019t stop at my weight.<\/p>\n

They called me ugly, stupid, worthless, and teased me for having an intellectual disability.<\/p>\n

And it wasn\u2019t just verbal abuse either.<\/p>\n

Read more: 10 expert tips to prevent preschool bullying<\/a><\/p>\n

\"HannahHannah Swinnerton as a child (Image: suppled)<\/p>\n

Sometimes they used superglue to cement my locker door shut and squished old sandwiches in the combination lock.<\/p>\n

Whenever I told my family, they encouraged me to keep my chin up.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou are so much better than your bullies,\u201d my mum, Wendy, would say.<\/p>\n

But the consequences at school were never enough to deter the bullies.<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t have any close friends to confide in, so instead of spending lunchtime outside with others, I hid by my locker.<\/p>\n

The instant the school bell rang, I put my head down and quickly exited the school gates.<\/p>\n

But no matter how fastI walked, I couldn\u2019t escape the torment.<\/p>\n

Living just a street over from school, my morning and afternoon walks were filled with peers yelling nasty comments at me.<\/p>\n

\u201cGo home,\u201d they teased. \u201cYou\u2019re useless!\u201d<\/p>\n

Even at homeI wasn\u2019t safe.<\/p>\n

\"HannahHannah Swinnerton as a child (Image: suppled)<\/p>\n

My phone rang off the hook with prank calls, and online the bullying escalated.<\/p>\n

In 2012, I opened Facebook to find an imageof myself had been photoshopped.<\/p>\n

Someone had removedmy face and replaced it with that of a pig.<\/p>\n

Hours later, the photo had been altered again, this time my face had been switched with the head of a cow.<\/p>\n

My stomach churned.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t think I can take this anymore, I thought in despair. That night, I broke down to Mum.<\/p>\n

\u201cI need help,\u201d I sobbed. \u201cI don\u2019t want to hurt myself.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s going to be okay,\u201d Mum soothed.<\/p>\n

A few days later, she took me to see a doctor who diagnosed me with anxiety and major depression.<\/p>\n

Rumours of my declining mental health began to spin around school, but the bullying only continued with my peers even encouraging self-harm.<\/p>\n

Then one day in Year 12, a teacher informed us that tomorrow\u2019s all-school assembly would have a focus on bullying<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"HannahHannah was ready to confront her bullies (image: supplied)<\/p>\n

Without hesitating I raised my hand.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would like to say something at it,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course, Hannah. That would be great,\u201d she smiled.<\/p>\n

I stayed up all night writing my speech.<\/p>\n

Next day, butterflies raced in my stomach as I stood up in front of 600 students, many who\u2019d made the past decade a living hell for me.<\/p>\n

\u201cI might not be skinny, but that doesn\u2019t mean people can call me names,\u201d I said. \u201cBecause of you bullies, the thoughts that go through my head are that I\u2019m useless and I don\u2019t belong.\u201d<\/p>\n

When I finished my speech, I was still shaking.<\/p>\n

Looking out, the silence was deafening.<\/p>\n

\"HannahHannah told her bullies what they\u2019d done. (image: supplied)<\/p>\n

After assembly, some of the people who\u2019d bullied me for years came up to me in tears and apologised.<\/p>\n

They had no idea the harm they were causing.<\/p>\n

In that moment, I discovered I wasn\u2019t a victim, I was a survivor, and that made me feel strong.<\/p>\n

So, when I graduated, I knew I had to shed the victim label I\u2019d wornfor years.<\/p>\n

I was determined to prove my worth to the world and started posting on social media, providing education on the damage caused by bullying.<\/p>\n

At 22, I saw an ad for the beauty pageant <\/a>Face of Confidence Australia 2016.<\/p>\n

Rather than looking fora fashion model, the competition focused on finding a strong community ambassador.<\/p>\n

I had been teased for so long about my looks and weight, I knew I had to enter.<\/p>\n

This is for all those bullies, I thought.<\/p>\n

\"HannahHannah entered her first beauty pageant in 2016 (image: supplied)<\/p>\n

In October that year, I waltzed down the stage in a sparkling silver and white gown and twirled beneath the bright lights.<\/p>\n

Waving to my family, who were cheering me on, I no longer felt like a victim.<\/p>\n

When the judges called my name, I froze in shock.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd the runner-up is Hannah Swinnerton!\u201d they announced, slipping a sash across my shoulders.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That crown gave me the encouragement I needed to keep preaching resilience.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can be anything you dream of,\u201d I told my social media following.<\/p>\n

After that, I entered more beauty pageants, and each time I stepped up on stage, I felt a little more of my old skin shedding.<\/p>\n

Whenever my name was called for prizes, it wasn\u2019t just about the sash, it was about proving each bully wrong.<\/p>\n

\"HannahHannah Swinnerton with trophy for winning 1st runner up, Face of Confidence award (image: supplied)<\/p>\n

I joined a gym and began kicking goals, including conqueringa 70kg deadlift and a 65kg hip thrust!<\/p>\n

So far I\u2019ve lost 30kg andit\u2019s inspired me to jump in the pool and train for the Special Olympics.<\/p>\n

Now I host my own radio show and podcast \u2013 Inspired to Soar with Hannah.<\/p>\n

I ask hard-hitting questions to politicians and community members about mental health.<\/p>\n

\"HannahHannah now loves working out (image: supplied)<\/p>\n

At 31, I am so proud of what I have achieved.<\/p>\n

No longer am I the girl who hid by her locker. I was born to change the world and I am finally, truly, thriving.<\/p>\n

\n\tRelated\n<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Profile\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After years of experiencing all types of bullying, Hannah Swinnerton, 31, has risen above\u2026 I jolted up in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":213657,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[7578,12506,84290,9,24,63,84291,122,124,123],"class_list":["post-213656","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-beauty","tag-bullying","tag-cyber-bullying","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-online-bullying","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213656","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=213656"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213656\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/213657"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=213656"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=213656"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=213656"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}