Brandi Mallory: The Woman. The Legend. The Experience

I never considered myself a confident plus-size girl when I was younger, and it wasn’t until I was older that I realized that you could be deemed more than “pretty for a big girl.” I learned that beautiful lesson in college when I met one of the people I would later look up to, Brandi “Duchii” Mallory.

Positive, plus-size role models were scarce growing up. Like every other big girl in America, I was stuck finding inspiration from fictional characters whose stories often didn’t reflect the woman I wanted to be – fierce, confident, and bold.

See, college in the South changed EVERYTHING for me. Why? Because the big girls were POPPIN’! Clark Atlanta University (CAU) had beautiful, plus-size women on its campus like Brandi, who weren’t afraid of their curves and flaunted them proudly. She later became my pageant mother for the “Bold, Beautiful, & Chic Society” pageant and helped mold me into the confident woman I am today. 

Accepting that one of my college role models is no longer here has been hard to swallow. Losing someone you looked up to is never an easy experience. And despite understanding how short our time on Earth is, a new loss is just another brutal reminder that life is temporary.