Inside Molly-Mae's teen transformation - from bad hair cuts to birthmark removal (2024)

Love Island star Molly-Mae Hague has opened up about the pressures she faced to appear beautiful even throughout her early teenage years.

Speaking in her brand new autobiography 'Becoming Molly-Mae', the world-renowned fashion and beauty influencer spoke out about some of the questionable beauty decisions she made whilst growing up, whilst her father revealed his fears about her being teased for her unusual birthmark.

23-year-old reality star Molly-Mae firstly explained that after entering, and later winning, a magazine competition to undergo a photoshoot in her early teenage years, she became increasing aware of her image.

"Those pictures look quite funny now because at the time I had extremely short dark hair – I’m not a natural blonde!

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"I’d always wanted to cut my hair short, but my mum had never let me, until finally I went into the hairdresser and asked for a ‘Frankie from The Saturdays’ look, which meant I ended up with hair long on one side and cut short on the other.

"Eventually, Frankie got the long side trimmed the same length as the short side, so I got that as well. By this point, I had hair almost the same length as Tommy’s now. It was so short – horrendous on me, really! I actually put a picture of it on my Instagram Stories and people were so shocked to see me with this short dark hair; it wasn’t even a bob – it was not my favourite look."

As well as a questionable hairdo, the reality star opened up about her decision to remove a visible birthmark as she made the move towards being an influencer.

In the book, her father Stephen Hague tells readers: "As dad to two daughters, I felt it was unfair for a girl to have the birthmark in such a prominent location – I used to get into verbal fights with people who said rude things about it.

"Once she started school, she was a cheeky monkey: teachers either loved her or didn’t – at a young age it was 90 per cent who loved her, and the birthmark gave her an adorable quality.

"A lot of people stood up for her and protected her from cruel remarks – I genuinely think this birthmark defined some of her resilience to the media that she has now."

Molly-Mae - who was also appointed Creative Director of fashion retailer PrettyLittleThing last year - claimed that she did grow to appreciate her birthmark marking her individuality.

"For a long while, I didn’t want to get rid of it," she admitted. "I wanted to keep it because – again! – I actually liked having something about me that was a bit different and made me stand out from the other kids."

Despite this, she disclosed that in fear of being bullied as she grew up, she made the decision to have the birthmark removed.

"I don’t think I was very aware of how kids could be. Luckily, I hadn’t had any problems with anyone teasing me about it, I think because I was confident about it."

Molly-Mae defended any 'transformation' she has experienced either pre or post her time on Love Island in 2019 - which she appeared on at just 19-years-old - claiming that "everyone's face matures".

"As I’ve found myself more in the public eye, one thing I have had to deal with is ‘before-and-after’ pictures – when they find old photos of you and compare them to how you look now.

"It’s never really bothered me, but one thing I would point out is that everyone’s face matures, whether or not you’ve had filler; your face ages."

Becoming Molly-Mae is out now.

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