Influencer’s bikini photo hides secret battle with Crohn’s disease

At first glance Rosie’s Instagram looks like any other glamorous influencer – but there’s an “invisible” detail in her selfies that almost killed her.

At first glance Rosie Campbell’s Instagram feed looks just like any other influencer, with glamorous selfies and bikini pictures.

But the woman from Essex, United Kingdom, says while she might look fine on the outside she has battled chronic pain for years after being diagnosed with Crohn's disease at age 12.

Crohn’s disease is an inflammatory bowel disease that causes inflammation of the digestive tract.

“On the outside you may look fine, on the inside it’s a completely different ball game

… because I look like this, doesn’t mean I haven’t gone through that,” she told the BBC.

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Rosie Campbell was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease at age 12. Picture: Instagram.

Rosie has had her colon removed because “it was going to kill me” and as well as an operation known as a proctectomy “Barbie butt surgery” where her rectum was removed and anus is sewed up.

Rosie said that while she “lost parts of my body that I didn’t think I was ever going to lose” she is ultimately glad she went through what she did.

“I grieved for someone that I thought I was going to be, ”she said. “And I’m actually glad that I went through what I did, because I actually think I prefer this person to potentially what I might have been without going through this.”

The procedures mean that Rosie now lives with a stoma bag which sits over her bowel to collect her body waste.

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She has had her colon removed and ‘Barbie butt’ surgery to save her life. Picture: Instagram.

The influencer lives with a stoma bag attached to her bowel. Picture: Instagram.

She told the BBC people still struggle to understand her Crohn’s disease as well as why she had such drastic surgery.

“It’s the unknown, people don’t know how to talk to you,” Rosie said. “And when you tell someone you don’t have a bum hole they’re like, ‘what do you mean?’

“(I reply) ‘What do you think I mean?’ I don’t have a bum hole anymore.

“It’s fine, it would have turned cancerous, that would have killed me … I didn't chose to do that, I chose to live, that’s what I chose.”

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Last year Rosie modelled a range of swimwear for Pretty Little Thing. Picture: Instagram.

Rosie uses her Instagram account @queenierqc to share her journey with Crohn’s disease and last year launched an edit of bikinis with online retailer Pretty Little Thing which she also models for.

She regularly pays tribute to her stoma bag, which “saved my life”, and tells others they can “make it work” like she did.

“I know when you fall ill first things that can come to your mind is – who will love me, who will want to go out with me, date me, see me naked, how will I wear a bikini, or trunks, go on holiday, go out all night, work full time with a bad stomach and 20 loo trips, how will I live?” Rosie wrote in an Instagram post earlier this month.

“It’s daunting it’s scary, it’s sh*t! But you make it work, it’s like learning to walk again, but you do it.”

Originally published as Influencer’s bikini photo hides secret battle with Crohn’s disease