A steel worker is forging a career as a plus-size model – using her surgically enhanced 50-inch butt.
Patricia Washington, 31, hopes to escape her tough life in a Detroit steel mill, where she is the only woman on the work floor.
Growing up in the impoverished US city, Patricia witnessed her mother’s murder when she was just eight.
But now, thanks to her voluptuous figure, she is shooting for a life as an international model – and has already got more than 150,000 followers on Instagram.
She said: “Working at the factory is living, but not living.
“For the past few years I have pretty much lived my life like a caged animal just being used to the same old things and not experiencing everything this world has to offer.
“Now my ambition is to be free.”
BarcroftBooty: Patricia Washington swelled her buttocks to a whopping 50 inches with special surgery
Patricia, who is nicknamed Superwoman by her colleagues, grew up in poverty and was raised by a mother who, like many in the area, had become addicted to hard drugs.
She said: “Detroit is pretty rough. It is pretty much a war zone, a battlefield.
“This city is very poor, we have been bankrupt for a few years now and there is not really too much in terms of job opportunities.
“I witnessed my own mother’s murder here when I was really, really young. She was on drugs but did what she had to do to try provide for us.
“My mum got tied up with a few bad men. She got involved with this one guy who sold drugs and they got into a fight over something and he didn’t like that she stood up for herself and so he killed her in front of me and my brother and sister.”
Patricia, whose father moved home to Jamaica when she was younger, credits her tough upbringing for preparing her to work in the male-dominated steel industry and gain the respect of her colleagues.
She said: “When they first heard that a female was going to step up and take the challenge they thought I wouldn’t make it.
“They said, ‘no way, she’s not going to be able to pick up this 100 pound nozzle, she’s not going to be able to swing the sledge or hammer’.
“They felt like it was a man’s job. But then I came in and made it happen. Now they treat me like just one of the guys.”