Author and body positive activist Megan Jayne Crabbe opens up TO ROXY BOURDILLON about how she finally let go of shame and embraced her whole, glorious self

Megan Jayne Crabbe is owning the room and owning who she is. We’re at the DIVA Awards in a swanky venue in central London. She’s on stage, looking beautiful and extremely pink, from her sparkly, fuchsia minidress to her coordinating eyeshadow and the matching streaks in her hair. I’m sat in the audience, watching her co-host the sapphic event of the year with her partner, best friend and “co-captain”, Team DIVA’s very own Char Bailey. In a masterful move to engage the crowd, they get us involved in a giant Mexican wave. Together, the glamorous power couple exude charisma, playfulness and unadulterated queer joy.

Photos Kiran Gidda

“I can experience attraction to any type of person and that’s a beautiful way to be”

› The Megan standing before me today is, as she cheerfully informs the audience, “a proud pansexual”. She’s also a trailblazing body positive activist, bestselling author and OG creator with over a million followers on Instagram alone. Not only that, it is clear for all to see that she is utterly smitten. She makes it look almost effortless, living this fully and freely, a liberated queer woman seemingly unencumbered by societal shame. But to get to this point, standing on this stage, celebrating her whole self and encouraging the rest of us to do the same, has been far from easy.

“I thought I was straight for the majority of my life,” she tells me when we catch up a few weeks later. She’s at home now, more casually dressed but still colourful. Her outfit is patterned with pineapples, the pink in her hair has begun to fade and she’s got her glasses on. She’s warm and engaging, as always, but gentle and reflective too. She shares a relatable teenage anecdote about kissing girls on nights out. “It was all for the male gaze, because that was the narrative. I even got to the point of having sex with girls, but telling myself it was just for whatever man happened to be there.”