Featured Image Credit: Instagram/danswygart
Topics: Sex and Relationships, Film and TV
Claire Reid
The man who dated a woman who is ‘trapped in a kid’s body’ has hit out at the nasty comments and criticism in a new Instagram video.
Dan Swygart, 26, has hit back at the ‘disgusting’ attitudes some people have shown towards him and Shauna Rae Lesick. You can see his response here:
Lesick, 23, who is 3ft 10in, had treatment for brain cancer when she was still a child, which caused the stunt in her growth, resulting in her weighing just 50 pounds and standing at the average size of an eight-year-old.
The treatment caused damage to her pituitary gland which led to her developing pituitary dwarfism.
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Lesick starred in the TLC series I Am Shauna Rae, in which she opened up about living with her condition.
Swygart, from Wales in the UK, appeared in an episode of the show, where Lesick revealed he’d slid into her DMs. He then travelled to the US to meet Shauna and her family last year and the pair went on several dates on the show.
At the time the episode came out, many viewers took to the comments section on YouTube to say they thought the relationship was 'concerning', 'weird' and 'creepy', with one writing: "I'm sorry, but any man that wants to date her - there is definitely something not right with him.
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"Yes, she is 23, but she looks and talks like an eight-year-old. She also does not act like a mature woman. She is childlike."
In response, Swygart has hit back saying: “Me and Shauna are still just really good friends getting to know each other, but I think it’s absolutely disgusting, the attitude of some people.
"She’s been through so much in her life - she survived cancer as a child, she’s always been felt different and been treated different by society,
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“But how dare you take away her right, her human right, to have a connection, a friendship, a relationship with someone else? Who are you to say that she can’t have that?
“I am absolutely disgusted about some people’s attitudes towards her and my friendship with her. I cannot believe some people who deny her the right to have a friendship or a connection with someone else.
“She is a human being, she’s a cancer survivor, she’s got a disability, she has dwarfism. Who are you to take away her right to have a friendship and connection with someone? How dare you? How dare you?”
But it hasn’t all been bad, Swygart went on to say that ‘so many people’ who have disabilities or family members with disabilities have reached out to him to say ‘thank you’ for showing that it’s ‘OK to build a connection of friendship with someone who’s different by society's standards’.