By Mary Madigan

Copyright news

Ms Pink is married to Toby Pink, who plays for the North Melbourne Kangaroos, and being criticised online about her weight has unfortunately become part of her life.

When the pair tied the knot in March this year, their nuptials went viral, not because they did anything crazy, but because she was body-shamed on the internet after the wedding photos were shared.

The comments were vile, and at the time, Ms Pink told news.com.au that she ended up “crying” all week over them.

It was disgusting, but after she called out the trolling, the awful incident resulted in Ms Pink becoming somewhat of an influencer. She now has over 12,000 followers on Instagram and a devoted and engaged following.

For the most part, Ms Pink can tune out the negativity and uses her social media platforms to inspire and connect with other women, but that doesn’t mean the criticism has stopped.

When she attended the AFL’s Best and Fairest Awards night over the weekend, she was partly excited, but also dreading it.

“I was very anxious about what I wore and how I looked and finding a dress that was flattering on me,” she told news.com.au.

Ms Pink wore a full-length white gown with sleeves that had ruching around the middle of the dress and a side split.

She worked with a stylist to find the frock, and the brief was focused around finding something that didn’t reveal much skin.

“The dress was beautiful, but I spent so much time looking, and I worked with a stylist because the whole point was that I didn’t want my arms or chest showing,” she explained.

“If I had my arms or chest out, I knew the comments would have been 10 times worse.”

Ms Pink wears between a size 14 to 16 and said she went with a more conservative dress in an attempt to “hide” her body because she’s so exhausted by the shaming.

“It is just relentless” she said.

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the average size of a woman in Australia is between a size 16 and 18.

The 25-year-old admitted that when she was at the event, she couldn’t help checking social media to see what people were saying about her after photos were posted to the team’s official Instagram page.

Even though the comments were being quickly deleted, she saw some horrible comments; one troll even claimed she looked like a “heifer brought in from a paddock”.

Ms Pink knows that people will tell her she shouldn’t read the comments – even her own friends and family have done, but it isn’t that simple.

“You don’t get it if you’re not in this position and you don’t know how it feels,” she explained.

“Everyone says to ignore it, but it is not your body getting criticised.”

The Aussie influencer regularly sees a psychologist and is actively trying to work through dealing with being criticised online but said it “still hurts”.

“I’ve done a lot of work on dealing with it, but it still hurts,” she said.

“I was sitting at the table at the awards night, and I read the comments, and it made me feel really sad, insecure and defeated.”

Ms Pink said sometimes the online comments hurt so much that she worries the trolls are saying what everyone else is thinking.

“I haven’t done anything to make these people hate me this much, I just married my husband,” she said.

The Melbourne local said she feels like people can’t handle seeing a “larger woman dating an athlete”.

“The public are so used to seeing a WAG that is a size 8 or 10,” she said.

“I’m a size 14 or 16, and my husband is in love with me, but I am more different to the rest.”

Ms Pink said her husband is always supportive and tries to encourage her not to listen to the haters.

“He is really positive, and when we see it, he is like, ‘it sucks’, but he always says you have to ignore it and know that I love you and you look good and they are nobodies,” she said.

The 25-year-old said that, despite the trolling over her weight and looks, she really loved her latest outfit.

“I loved the way I looked, and I felt really comfortable, and although people were calling me a heifer, that didn’t make me shy away from posing,” she said.

Ms Pink said it’s really hard to reason with herself. On one hand, she believes she’s “confident and beautiful” but admits, “I obviously I am insecure because otherwise these comments wouldn’t affect me.”