Sierra Hufham was on vacation in the Dominican Republic when she got to chatting with a nice older couple by the pool. The three of them hit it off so well, Hufham — single at the time — decided to take a chance: “If you have any kids, I’m daughter-in-law material.”
The couple introduced her to their son, Brandon, but there was a problem: “It was like, love at first sight. It was magical,” she tells People. But…“I was shocked because he was this hot, ripped guy. And here I am, this big girl.”
The unspoken rules of our society dictate that a relationship like this could never work out, between a self-described fat girl and a fitness-obsessed dude with six pack abs. But a few years later, Sierra and Brandon got married and, despite the odds, they’re happier than ever.
Sierra recently explained the ups and downs of her unique love story on TikTok, where it went viral.
Sierra shares her journey under the handle @the_fatgirldiaries. In her most popular clip, she bluntly asks and answers the question: “Can fat girls date hot guys?”
“The answer is 100% unequivocally Yes,” she says. “Because I landed one.”
“I don’t want you to feel like if you are fat, that you are a fetish. Because you’re just a person, you’re a person just like a skinny girl. As a person you have personality, you have beauty, you have style, you have finesse just like a skinny girl does. So don’t feel like anybody’s out of your reach. Because they’re not.”
Sierra goes on to explain that she was told her whole life that she’d never be able to make an attractive man fall in love with her, and it took years and years of work to undo that programming and rebuild her confidence.
“[My own mother] used to say to me ‘You know, you’re so pretty but if you just lost 100 pounds, you’d be a knockout and then you could get a really good looking guy.’ … That ruined my self-esteem for a long time.”
“But she was wrong ’cause I got literally like the hottest guy in the world and I’m 150 pounds heavier than him. And he loves me as I am and not as a fetish. You can land anybody you want to, weight is not the issue here. It’s peoples mindsets and their hearts and that’s what matters.”
Watch the full video here:
The video got over 800,000 views and counting, along with thousands of comments. The overwhelming majority showed Sierra really struck a cord with women everywhere.
Clearly Sierra isn’t the only one who felt, or was repeatedly told growing up, that they’d never find love without losing weight.
“Literally the stuff my mom said to me wrecked me still 25 yrs later,” one user wrote.
“My whole life has been ‘You have such a pretty face, if you only lost X pounds…’” said another.
“This actually made me cry. I grew up in a household that said mean things like the things your mother said to u and it diminished my confidence. I’m working on my confidence. Thank you for this,” another user added.
Comments just like this poured in over and over. Sierra’s video was cathartic for so many women who had experienced the same struggles and were overjoyed to finally have some hope for their own happy ending.
But Sierra says she gets plenty of haters, too, and lots of “rough” comments. But it doesn’t stop her from continuing to spread her journey of acceptance, love, and positivity.
There’s a ton of stigma around thinner men dating fatter women. Women like Sierra get told constantly that their “hotter” spouses can do better, will eventually cheat on them, or that they don’t deserve the love that they’ve found. Fat women are expected to be grateful to get any attention at all and to accept poor treatment or even abuse in relationships.
Frustratingly, it doesn’t really seem to go the other way. Larger men who date women who are thinner than them also receive scrutiny, but not nearly to the same level. In fact, they’re more likely to get a high five for somehow pulling off such a coup!
Even some of those who aren’t openly critical of Sierra’s story remain skeptical. “Your husband is one in a million,” a commenter wrote. “Most men don’t like chubby. They don’t look past the weight,” said another. “Yeah they like use behind closed doors not in public,” someone wrote.
Sierra, through her social media following, is out to prove those people wrong, and that weight is just a number. She believes confidence is the sexiest trait a person can have, and she’s living proof that it just might be true.
