A professional mermaid opened up about the vitriol she faced just for making her dream come true.
Grace Page, 31, was body shamed and branded delusional for her career portraying a mythical creature.
But she had the last laugh and now runs her own company called Hire A Mermaid UK where she creates magical memories for kids and trains other women for the unique role.
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And the graceful entertainer spoke to Daily Star ahead of the cinema release of Disney’s live-action remake of The Little Mermaid starring Halle Bailey as Ariel.
Grace, from Reading, told us: “When I first started lots of people were going on the frame of ‘she is mental’ and they were like ‘oh my god she thinks she is a real mermaid’ rather than looking at it from a professional perspective.
“They assumed I was a bit cuckoo and then you start getting your appearance picked apart as well because mermaids have this certain ideal of being these beautiful amazing creatures.
“They would say 'you are not pretty enough to be a mermaid' and then that moved on to a viral video I did around Christmas. I was doing an aquarium show and I had gained a little bit of weight but I was still only a UK size 10 to 12.
“But the amount of people commenting that I was a fat mermaid and calling me a whale and things…
“Then the other thing is your hair gets talked about a lot. I have it pretty much fixed now but I suffer from telogen effluvium, so any level of stress can make my hair fall out and I did a video for TikTok and it was one of the worst points for my hair.
“It was in patches and people were commenting that they thought mermaids were supposed to have nice hair.”
Grace stressed dealing with trolling gets easier as repetitive comments become boring and ultimately hold no value.
Despite the online hate, she now boasts 1.3million TikTok followers, highlighting just how appreciated her work is.
She loved The Little Mermaid growing up and her mum would always make her walking mermaid tails for fancy dress parties.
And her mother and nan were fully behind her when she started forging a career from her passion for mermaids – despite it being somewhat unheard of in Britain.
However, her partner at the time wasn’t as supportive.
She said: “My boyfriend at the time, he’s not my boyfriend now, this was years ago but he and his family didn’t see how it would work.
“His response was ‘how are you going to be a mermaid in the UK, we barely have any swimming pools, we barely have any sunshine’ and that was the response from a lot of people.
“They thought it was a cool idea but they didn’t think it would work, but I did it anyway.”
Determined Grace worked hard to obtain a small business loan of £4,500 and went from there.
She also trained as an open water free diver so she could hold her breath and do realistic mermaid-like swimming.
A silicone tail was then bought and she started posting online about herself and over the past few years she has trained 70 mermaids in the UK – despite only three being on the scene when she started.
She can also hold her breath for four minutes but wants to get that number up to six.
And luckily for Grace, she has even seen The Little Mermaid film on a private screening before the official release.
Giving her verdict, she said: “It is really really good. They have made lots of little changes to really add to the storyline which I really like.
“There are certain things that are different to the original which I thought was a bit of a shame but overall really really good and I really enjoyed it.
“You have to see if you are a fan of the original.”
Grace launched her Hire A Mermaid UK business online in 2014 and we asked her how proud she was of making it a success, despite not having much precedent to work with.
She said: “I am very proud and it is a bit surreal, it doesn’t really register.
“I am someone who is always chasing the next goal. I find anyone else who has that trait tends not to send back on what you have already achieved.
“But it is really nice and it is still a surprise when people message me nice things. I get people saying how much they love or thanking me and they come up to me at the mermaid conventions and say they have been watching since I started.
“It is really surreal and I feel humbled every time because I forget I did any of it. But it is really rewarding and I get to experience that first hand at my mermaid camps where I train the next generation of mermaids.”
The Little Mermaid is being released in British cinemas tomorrow (May 26).
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