A mother who founded the world’s first nightclub specifically for larger women has stepped down as figurehead of the group after losing 17 stone, having been warned by doctors that the excess weight could leave her paralysed.
Shadoe Grey, 49, set up Club Curves in LA, California, seven years ago, when she weighed 25 stone. But when she dropped to just eight stone her frame no longer represented her company and she felt she had to step down.
The mother-of-one had previously loved her larger size – and admits receiving plenty of male attention – but when doctors warned that her health was in danger she decided to change her lifestyle.
Shadoe Grey, pictured at 280lbs in 2005 (right) and 112lbs today (right), opened the world’s first big girls’ club
‘I want to help other people start their own clubs for big people because I will never stop feeling like a big girl’
But losing 17 stone after gastric surgery has, the blue-eyed blonde says, come at a price.
Not only is she celibate – the types men who used to be attracted to her having now lost interest – but she has also been bulled out of the club she founded, leaving her feeling ‘outcaset from my own people’.
Shadoe said: ‘I set up Club Curves after suffering fat discrimination – but when I lost weight I was bullied for being too thin.
‘It’s left me devastated – I’ll never get stop feeling like an outcast from my own people. I’ve lost a lot of friends along the way because they couldn’t accept that I’m not fat anymore.
‘But even though I’ve been forced into the shadows, I’m still flying the flag for big women.’
In 1997 Shadoe (right) founded Club Curves and became a spokeswoman for larger ladies
Shadoe had been teased about being overweight since childhood, but by the time she hit her 20s she’d enough of being sidelined.
In 1997 she founded Club Curves and became a spokeswoman for larger ladies, with her message that size doesn’t matter.
She said: ‘I wanted to find a place where I could be looked at with desire. I became more successful as a businesswoman with the club and happier about my figure.
‘I realised people were attracted to me in a physical way and that I had an attractive personality. Everything in life was good.’
But with her new-found popularity, she was soon eating up to five thousand calories a day.