Bachelor alum Bekah Martinez is opening up about why not shaving her legs is an act of “self-love.”
On Friday, Martinez, 24, shared a photo slideshow of herself from a recent red carpet appearance with visible hair on her legs. “I went to a red carpet event without shaving my legs!!” Martinez wrote alongside photos of herself from the event that was also attended by fellow Bachelor stars Kendall Long and Corinne Olympios.
“This may sound really dumb, it was a big deal for me. I’ve finally gotten to the point where I feel (almost) totally comfortable like this,” Martinez continued.
The mother of one went on to reveal that she stopped shaving her legs and armpits “about a year ago as a practice of self-love,” adding, “I grew up HATING the hair on my body. I was teased for it, snuck my mom’s razor at age 9, would pray that god would remove the hair from the neck down.”
It got so bad that Martinez said she would “panic every time I got invited to go swimming and hadn’t shaved.”
It wasn’t until she got pregnant her baby daughter Ruthie Ray, now 6 months, that she decided to make a change.
“When I got pregnant, I decided to work to overcome this insecurity. It’s not about ‘not believing in shaving,’ it’s about believing I AM BEAUTIFUL, ATTRACTIVE AND ‘FEMININE’ NO MATTER WHERE I HAVE HAIR ON MY BODY,” she said. “It’s about showing girls you don’t have to listen when society tells you your natural features are ugly or gross.”
Martinez added, “It has taken months to get used to it. The horrible online comments don’t help. But I’m getting there.”
Martinez concluded the post with words of encouragement for her followers. “Remember, if someone has a problem with the way you look, that’s an issue with THEIR mentality, not YOUR body.”
As most fans of Martinez know, the reality star is an open book when it comes to her life.
In addition to speaking candidly about her insecurities, Martinez has previously spoken out about some regrets she has regarding her pregnancy.
“I would definitely do a lot different,” Martinez said on her Instagram Story last month. “I didn’t savor the pregnancy. I feel like a lot of people say this but I really felt it this morning. I was like, ‘Man, I wish I had cherished that time having her in my belly, and really just had more of a chance to celebrate it.'”
She also shared that she and Ruth’s dad, boyfriend Grayston Leonard, “had a hard time in [their] relationship throughout the pregnancy.”
“It’s funny because a lot of people say the first year of having a baby is the hardest, but for us, the hardest year of our relationship was while I was pregnant,” Martinez revealed.
But once the couple welcomed their first child together in early February, “it was like everything changed.”
“A lot of the animosity and stress and resentment we were holding towards each other went away when we had her, which I’m grateful for, but I wish we got to have fun while I was pregnant,” Martinez shared.
The new mom — who appeared on season 22 of The Bachelor — and Leonard began dating in early 2018 and learned they were expecting three months into their relationship. They welcomed their daughter on Feb. 2 of this year.
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