Ellie Simmonds has bravely told for the first time how she was put up for adoption at 10 days old after medics warned she would be seen as 'evil' due to her dwarfism.
The 4ft Paralympian, who has won five gold medals in swimming, was adopted when she was three months old.
She was devastated to discover her mum wished she had died at birth after medics told her Ellie would be ridiculed and seen as 'stupid' and 'evil'.
Despite this, the former Strictly Come Dancing star, 28, still wanted to find her birth mum and embarked on a search for her blood family last year.
Speaking in a new ITV documentary, Ellie admitted she'd never been bothered about being adopted, especially as her parents, who have four other children, have always been her biggest fans.
But recently questions "started to bubble up" about where she came from, so she decided to find some answers.
With the help of a specialist social worker, Ellie got hold of the files relating to her birth.
Days after she was born, the hospital confirmed Ellie had achondroplasia.
An information sheet given to her birth mother warned how her daughter would have a "large skull and depressed nasal bridge" and that children with the condition "tend to be muscular and acrobatic, which is perhaps the reason for them traditionally being involved in the circus and other forms of theatre."
The form continued: "Children have to deal with being stared at and laughed at by other children. Indeed, there are those with normal height who equate short stature with evil and stupidity."
Ellie, whose birth mother named her Eleanor, said: "Can you imagine reading that and thinking, 'That's my child’? In a way, I understand, when you don't know anything about the disability and you get this. You're going to be scared."
But while her birth mother struggled to wrap her head around Ellie's condition, the retired competitive swimmer has vowed to do things differently and love any child she might have in the future - no matter what.
Ellie, who is in a long-term relationship with boyfriend Matt Dean, told the Daily Mail: "I would like to have children in the future."
As to whether the child would have dwarfism or be of average height, to the sports star it doesn't matter.
"What I do know is that I would love that child whatever, just as my parents loved me," she added.
Ellie and Matt met as children through his parents, Penny and Arthur Dean, who are pioneers in sports for people with dwarfism, and co-founded the Dwarf Sports Association, a charity that Ellie is now a patron of.
They got together later in life and have a house in South Manchester.
Ellie has said she's never wanted to change her height and credits this to the 'positive outlook' her parents instilled in her.
From the age of two, she was immersed in the dwarfism community, which made her feel 'included rather than different'. And it was through those connections that she met Penny and Arthur.
They introduced her to swimming when she was just a toddler, and by the time she was eight, the sports star was competing against average-height children.
Back in 2022, she fronted a BBC documentary, Ellie Simmonds: A World Without Dwarfism? which explored the clinical trials of a drug that could increase growth rate in children aged five to 18 with Ellie's condition.
To begin with, the star - along with many others - opposed it, fearing it would erase the dwarfism community.
And while making the documentary 'changed her perception', she admitted she doesn't know if she'd choose it for her own child.
"I would probably say no - and the same goes for whether I would have chosen it for myself. If it was around then, my parents would not have chosen it for me either," she told The Sun.
When Ellie was a child, she was offered limb-lengthening treatment - an agonising series of procedures that involved breaking and stretching calf, thigh, and arm bones over several years.
Those undergoing the process usually have a metal frame attached to the limb once the bone has been broken, which can be altered to stretch the bone by 1mm a day.
For Ellie, the treatment wasn't something she wanted.
"I remember as a kid, around the age of seven, I had to go to the hospital for check-ups and measurements every year," she continued.
"At the time, they suggested limb-lengthening, a procedure which many with dwarfism have. We discussed it and in the end, we realised I was happy as I am — I can swim, I can run, why would I want to change?"
Ellie Simmonds: Finding My Secret Family will be on ITV1 on Thursday, July 6 at 9pm.
