Grace Francesca Victory (born 29 August 1990) is a British YouTuber, writer, body positive activist and television presenter from High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire.[1]

Early life

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Grace grew up on a council estate in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, with her mother Dawn, younger sister Charlotte (known as Charleigh) and her father. Victory is of British-Caribbean heritage.[2]

Through childhood Victory witnessed domestic violence and drug abuse at home, and is currently no longer in contact with her father.[3]

As a child Victory trained at the Jackie Palmer Stage School in High Wycombe, and went on to star in The Bill, Family Affairs and four Harry Potter films.[3]

Career

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Victory began her YouTube channel age 21 in 2011.[4] Her channel started out as The Ugly Face of Beauty, with most of her content focussing on make-up and fashion.[5] As her content matured Victory diversified into more personal video and blog content including mental health, eating disorders and domestic violence.[5] As of January 2021 Grace has over 220,000 YouTube subscribers, more than 220,000 Instagram followers and over 90,000 Twitter followers.

In 2016 Victory presented BBC Three's Clean Eating's Dirty Secrets, a documentary about the wellness approach of clean eating.[6]

In March 2017 Victory collaborated with Nike, modelling for their first plus-size apparel campaign.[7] Later in 2017 Grace released her first book No Filter, featuring stories from her life including topics of domestic abuse and mental health.[8]

Since 2019 Victory has been a columnist for Happiful magazine.[9]

Victory's second book How To Calm It was published in January 2021 by #Merky Books, Stormzy's imprint within Penguin Random House.[10]

Personal life

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Grace began therapy in 2016 for mental health issues.[2]

Victory announced her pregnancy with partner Lee, in a photograph posted to her social media on 29 August 2020.[11]

In early December 2020 Victory developed mild symptoms of COVID-19,[1] but on 24 December 2020 her son was born prematurely due to COVID-19 complications and the following day she was placed in an induced coma.[11] On 8 March 2021 Grace made a post on Twitter stating "I'm awake" followed by another saying "Baby boy is thriving at home x."

References

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  1. ^ a b "Grace Victory: YouTuber with Covid 'responding well to treatment'". BBC News. 31 December 2020. Retrieved 25 January 2021.
  2. ^ a b "Blogger Grace Victory on how social media helped her realise her black heritage". Metro. 1 November 2017. Retrieved 25 January 2021.
  3. ^ a b "Who is Grace Victory? 'Harry Potter' star in a coma with Covid-19 a day after giving birth to baby boy". meaww.com. 29 December 2020. Retrieved 25 January 2021.
  4. ^ "The New Age Of Flexible Working Could Be The Perfect Time To Hone Your Personal Brand". British Vogue. 8 July 2020. Retrieved 25 January 2021.
  5. ^ a b "Grace Victory: 'Wellness And Clean Eating Is Just A More Instagrammable Form Of Weight Loss'". Grazia. 8 December 2016. Retrieved 25 January 2021.
  6. ^ "Clean Eating's Dirty Secrets". www.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 25 January 2021.
  7. ^ Gustashaw, Megan (8 March 2017). "One of Nike's New Models Issued the Best Clap-Back to Fat-Shamers Ever". Teen Vogue. Retrieved 25 January 2021.
  8. ^ "Grace Victory on No Filter Book Release". Retrieved 25 January 2021.
  9. ^ "Grace Victory". Happiful Magazine. Retrieved 25 January 2021.
  10. ^ "Stormzy's #Merky Books to release guides to mindfulness, fitness and finance". Bucks Free Press. 12 November 2020. Retrieved 25 January 2021.
  11. ^ a b "YouTuber Grace Victory 'currently stable' after being put in coma". The Independent. 31 December 2020. Retrieved 25 January 2021.