The iconic “Napalm Girl” picture featuring nine-year-old Kim Phuc Phan Thi fleeing an aerial attack during the Vietnam War made it difficult for her to “navigate private and emotional life”, she has said in a new essay.
“Growing up, I sometimes wished to disappear not only because of my injuries – the burns scarred a third of my body and caused intense chronic pain – but also because of the shame and embarrassment of my disfigurement,” Kim Phuc wrote in an essay titled “It’s been 50 years. I am not ‘Napalm Girl’ anymore”.
