Photo: FOX/FOX Image Collection via Getty Images
On Tuesday, 38-year-old kidnapping survivor Elizabeth Smart revealed on Instagram that she’s become a bodybuilder. Under a ripped-looking photo of herself in a bikini, she wrote, “Had you asked me if I would ever compete in a bodybuilding show a couple of years ago I would have said, ‘Absolutely not! Never in 100 years!’” Cut to last weekend, and she was posing for this photo at the Wasatch Warrior bodybuilding competition in Salt Lake City — which she said was actually the fourth competition she’s taken part in.
Smart, who was abducted from her family’s Salt Lake City home in 2002 at the age of 14 and repeatedly sexually assaulted during the nine months she was held captive, added that, at first, she was “too afraid to post” about her new passion, because she was “worried that I would be judged, not taken seriously, somehow perceived as less than or now unworthy to continue work as an advocate for all survivors.” However, she realized “how eerily familiar these feelings and thoughts are for too many survivors,” and how important it is for her “to make the most of today.” “We don’t know what tomorrow brings,” she wrote. “And I don’t want to reach the end of my life and look back and feel regret for only living a half-life, not going after all the things I want to do and try.”
Smart added that she’s “so proud” of herself for pursuing bodybuilding. “My body has carried me through every worst day, every hellish grueling experience, it’s created and nurtured three beautiful children,” she wrote. “My body has risen to every single challenge life has presented it with and carried me through, so I refuse to be ashamed of it.”
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