Lamiez Holworthy on how LiveAMP changed her & how she changed others

16 November 2021 - 08:00 By Joy Mphande
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Lamiez Holworthy says being on LiveAMP helped her empower other women.
Lamiez Holworthy says being on LiveAMP helped her empower other women.
Image: Instagram/ Lamiez Holworthy

While shooting the final episode of SABC1's LiveAMP alongside DJ Speedsta last Friday, Lamiez Holworthy was overwhelmed with emotion and couldn't help but shed tears.

The media personality and DJ says being a part of the show was a testament that dreams are valid, hard work pays off, and being different is something to have pride in.

She reflected on how she couldn't have imagined just how much she — through the show — would inspire other young people from townships to fearlessly pursue their passion.

“I have been on LiveAMP for so long because I am different, because I am the change that the world so desperately needed, that SA desperately needed. Little girls need to see a woman who look like them, other women need to see women that are real, women with stretch marks, women with cellulite, women with big thighs and they needed to know that it was OK. 

“People needed to know that being different is OK and that is also your power once you accept your flaws, no-one can use them against you,” she told TshisaLIVE.

Lamiez said walking into the LiveAMP audition room four years ago, she had very low self-esteem but she has since emerged a woman who is comfortable in all of who she is.

“At the auditions, I was legit the only different one. Everyone looked the same, dressed the same, they sounded the same, everyone was also fairly smaller than I was, they were skinnier, they were lighter in complexion ... ”

“I remember crying after making it through the first round because it was so overwhelming, the fact that I was steps closer to my dream ... and having to remind myself ... being the only different one in the room ... that was my power,” she said.

While Lamiez has since endured people judging her over her appearance, she says she is unfazed by it not only because she had grown compassion for the trolls but because she realised that her standing confident and firm every day helped many other women as well.

“With every episode, seeing how many people's lives I'd touch, random strangers that would meet me and cry, random women of all ages, most older than me, would come to my gigs in shorts or a dress and would tell me that they were comfortable in their own skin because of me, is priceless.

“I realised that this is so much bigger than me as an individual. That this is for every child in the hood who's been told that they're not enough.”

After her mother, who is also her manager, convinced her to embrace her natural hair years ago, Lamiez said it was then that she began to take back her power and let go of society's standards of beauty.

“I used to be a weave girl, I used to spend thousands on really long weaves because I thought that made me more like the girl in the magazine would look ... so cutting my hair was me taking back my power,” she said.


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